quesadilla

What an odd thread. As of others have said, there isn't really an accepted definition of what is required to be considered a "blue blood" CFB program. That said, I have yet to see any published list of "blue blood" football programs that doesn't include Nebraska (or one that does include MN).

What a crazy and sad turn of events.

Agreed 100%. It's our "TEXAS IS BACK, FOLKS" moment but so much worse.

They don't have the most wins. tOSU is 5-0, Indiana is 6-1. The h2h tiebreaker rule is only supposed to apply if there's an actual tie. ESPN updated their rankings to show tOSU, a lot of other sites still have Indiana at 1. Granted there's a pandemic going on, but IMHO Indiana should have been given the opportunity to play their way into the championship. Beat Purdue this weekend and they are in. Lose and they are out. 7-1 beats 5-0, 5-0 beats 6-2. EDIT: Nevermind, apparently IN-Purdue is also cancelled. They're saying it's COVID but I'd be curious if the decision came before or after the tOSU vote. The ESPN story doesn't make the timeline clear, although the tOSU story posted at 11am and the Indiana-Purdue cancelation at 1pm.

I never cheered for the Longhorns, Big XII or not. I know the ACC pulled some shenanigans too, to benefit Notre Dame and Clemson, so that leaves Bama as the only team in the top 4 that has or will play a full schedule and won all their games. Isn't that the whole point of the season?

I think this is 2009, put-the-second-back-on-the-clock for good ol' Mack Brown BS. On some level, I'd be fine with this if Indiana lost to Purdue this weekend, but to declare it before the games are even played is a joke and an absolutely sh!tty way to treat the Indy coaches and players. If there's any cosmic justice in this Plague Year, tOSU will get curb-stomped in the playoffs. Roll Tide, I guess.

A few updates from SEC country. AL and Auburn are reporting significant increases in positive tests (5x for Auburn in the week since classes began) https://www.al.com/auburn/2020/08/auburn-universitys-covid-19-cases-multiply-by-five.html U Alabama convinced the mayor of Tuscaloosa to completely close all bars in town for 2 weeks in attempt to get the cases among UA students under control (after cancelling all student on and off campus events for 2 weeks and sending threatening emails didn't work): https://www.al.com/news/2020/08/tuscaloosa-bars-shut-down-2-weeks-to-slow-covid-spread-on-alabama-campus.html Nick Saban advocates for football season: https://www.al.com/alabamafootball/2020/08/passionate-nick-saban-defends-efforts-to-play-football-amid-pandemic.html

Too much at stake is right, which is why some program/conferences are trying to force a season and why it's all going to collapse. Do you think Alabama, Georgia, or LSU will let the rest of the SEC play without them? Even if they do, at what point does ESPN point out that a Mizzou-Arkansas SEC championship is not exactly what all that SEC Network money was supposed to produce? We might be so thirsty for any college sports to think we're content with Nebraska v. North Dakota Eastern Tech but it doesn't mean it makes financial sense for the networks or the even the teams to actually play those games.

Alabama is just one week into the semester and is already using 200+ of the 450 quarantine beds they leased from a local apartment complex to house sick kids of campus. No one is playing through to a national championship.

More on this in Tuscaloosa: https://www.al.com/alabamafootball/2020/08/alabama-lineman-unhappy-with-large-crowds-lack-of-masks-in-tuscaloosa.html

I just don't see football happening at the college level. College football teams aren't in a bubble - they're part of campus and local and state communities - and every campus has a protocol in place that will cause a shutdown if certain triggering events occur. UTexas will go remote if any single one of their ~50k students dies of COVID. Alabama supposedly looks at conditions in the local community, and statewide ICU capacity has been sitting at or below 15% for the past week in AL. No way Texas lets the Big 12 play without them or Alabama the SEC. Teams will start toppling along with their states/campuses and the season will collapse.

Interesting. I assumed that if a school didn't field a team for games or practices, then it couldn't count as a year of eligibility for the player. The schools just take the financial hit of paying scholarships for no games. But if they loose a year even if sitting idle, then that explains why so many are pinning their hopes on spring ball instead. Failure to plan on so many levels.

While it's hypocritical for colleges to go on but cancel sports, tons of colleges are reversing their plans too. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/08/12/hundreds-colleges-walk-back-fall-reopening-plans-and-opt-online-only-instruction For any school that goes forward, this semester is going to end up just like the last one - cancelled sports and remote learning. At this point, I'm more curious to see how coaches try to protect eligibility for players after they go forward for a few games before the season blows up. Why burn eligibility on an aborted season full of fill-in opponents from North Dakota?

As a nation and as states, we have not flattened the curve: "According to UT's model, Texas is predicted to see a steep increase in coronavirus deaths by the end of August. By Aug. 31, the model predicts nearly 23,460 Texans will have died from coronavirus. As of Aug. 10, 8,459 people have died, according to the State's coronavirus dashboard. " https://www.kvue.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-ut-deaths-prediction-model-texas-austin-august-cases-update/269-f3523a4a-658f-460a-aff7-5bfa369d7067 For those keeping score at home, COVID-related deaths in Texas are predicted to nearly triple in the next 2 weeks. We were supposed to be in a lull right now and all plans related to K-12 and college education and athletics were premised on that assumption. But instead the entire footprint of the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 will be a complete horrorshow in the next month or so.