The Read Option
Bill Connelly released his final S&P+ projections for the 2016 season, with Alabama the anticipated best team; Clemson, Michigan, and Oklahoma the teams with the best Playoff shots; and the Tigers and Tide expected to have the best offense and defense, respectively.
There’s more fun stuff in there, like Kansas having by far the country’s best ("best") odds of going 0-12, Arkansas being the best team that has basically no hope of the Playoff, and Houston having only a 2 percent chance of meeting 11-win hype! Did I say fun? I meant something else. Sorry.
One actually fun thing: combining the projected ratings for Texas Tech’s offense, expected to rank No. 2, and Boston College’s defense, expected to rank No. 3, gives you a total team S&P+ of 31.3, meaning such a combo team should be favored by about a point against overall No. 1 Bama (30.4) on a neutral field and by about 31 points over 2016’s most perfectly average team, Wake Forest (0).
Even more fun: doing the same with TTU’s No. 122 defense and BC’s No. 124 offense would make a team total of -22.4, or a team that should be an underdog against No. 128 North Texas (-21).
See how fun that is?
(And yeah, Bill's slightly more hopeful about BC's offense and TTU's defense than his numbers are.)
Elsewhere!
If you'd like to read some longer stuff to get fired up for the season really beginning, I'd recommend this by Bill and the 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 editions of Spencer's season-starters.FOOTBALL HAPPENED! Cal and Hawaii players celebrated touchdowns in extremely Australia-appropriate fashions, Cal's QB became the season's first boy band meme, and Charleston Southern-North Dakota State turned in an EA Sports Instant Classic.
Podcast! The Solid Verbal countdown previews the country's top eight teams.
Hi, here's Rich Rodriguez standing on a hill and yelling while dressed as Maximus.
Commits of the weekend: four-stars choose Florida, Maryland, and South Carolina.
It would not be a football season without Mark Richt dismissing two starters right before week one.
Alabama fans evaluate the threat level of Kirby Smart at Georgia.
An NDSU athlete named Morgan named another NDSU athlete named Mr. Morgan. She took his last name.
The Playoff changes ever so slightly this year, so be sure you're caught up on all the tweaks.
Feel like telling an athlete to stick to sports instead of voicing political opinions? Don't try that .... around Cardale Jones.
Remember Dan Rubenstein's Easy Call? The weekend-preview gamblin' and eatin' show? It's on our Snapchat now.
PREVIOUS: That was nowhere near the first time American colleges have played football outside the States, so here's a map history of international games.
