College football Week 1 thread

The Wall Street Journal ran a list in their article. According to the list Toledo had 70K actually show. The rest of the MAC schools had actual attendance of between 22k (Buffalo ) and 50K (Western Michigan).

I am sure night games don't help but it appears people have stopped going to MAC games.

College Football’s Growing Problem: Empty Seats

 

Autumn afternoons can often be quite pleasant. Autumn nights much less so. Maybe the MAC should put fire pits in each stadium section if it continues to be D-list fodder for ESPN weeknights.

 

It has to be hard to get people interested when you aren't part of the championship chase. Not that MAC schools really ever were before, but now since there's a formal procedure and they've been aced out of it, everyone knows they aren't playing the same sport.

 

According to ESPN, only 14 teams have a shot at the title - before the season's even started. I'm thinking an expanded playoff will become a necessity. Make it a 12 teamer with all conference champs and two at-large. First round byes for top four conference champs. Makes the regular season mean something and every team has a shot.

 

One can only dream.

 

Dan, all the incentives are lining up for the big boys to close the circle entirely and make it a P5 party (probably P4 by then, bye-bye Big 12). I don't see them allowing the smaller schools to share that pie.

 

The Congress and a wide variety of state governments might have something to say about that. College sports is a business allowed to break just about every law that governs business to maintain the polite fiction it's part of, well, college. The worse the abuses get (and we're at widespread sexual abuse right now), the less popular the fiction will become.

 

I'm not so sure. I think a large element of the popularity of CFB is it being different from the NFL. The greater disparity in talent, both between teams and among players, makes things exciting so as to cover up the fact that the football is worse. Teams have to come up with different schemes, upsets are more likely, crazy performances happen more often. Just make teams official pipelines for the NFL and the talent would be even more concentrated and the play more like the NFL, just clearly not as good.

 

There's a realistic shot and a theoretical shot.
In theory, there are about 70 teams with a shot at it. Any Power 5 team has a chance if it wins its conference. Obviously, most of those teams are nowhere near good enough to pull that off, but there is a clearly-defined route for Vanderbilt and Iowa State to play each other for the national title.

 

In all fairness, how many teams would be listed as having "realistic" chances for the NFL title right now. Eight? I think that's high.

 

Nah, anyone who makes the playoffs has a chance — look at the 6 seeds who have gone to and won the Super Bowl — and plenty of teams besides that.

The top eight last year wouldn’t have included the Eagles.

 

The Cuse is in full meltdown mode.