Every March, the NCAA Tournament attracts casual fans whose sports interest typically resides elsewhere for the other 11 months of the year. For college football fans, some of the teams that made the 2016 NCAA Tournament might seem foreign. This year’s Field of 68 featured 14 universities with Football Championship Subdivision programs, including 2015 FCS […]
The life preserver the Sun Belt Conference threw Idaho and New Mexico State shortly after the Western Athletic Conference ceased football operations never felt like a long-term arrangement. Reports ahead of a statement from Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson likely confirm it. Idaho and New Mexico State are out as Sun Belt affiliates, just as […]
Baseball season is right around the corner, with pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training camps in the coming week. Growing up a fan of the Chicago Cubs, springtime usually brings with it irrational exuberance, followed by almost immediate disappointment. But after a surprise run to the NLCS last autumn, I have realistic hope the […]
The NCAA announced Wednesday, via the DI Council conference championship deregulation. The decision effectively opening the door for the Big 12 and Sun Belt to host title games without expansion. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby immediately followed the NCAA’s announcement with a statement of his own, reassuring opponents of a potential championship game after the […]
The Associated Press did a nice job with its All-Bowl Team. Seriously! No one included on either offense or defense jumps out as an egregious selection. The AP includes highlights for each of its selections at its home site, but here’s a brief snapshot: ALL-BOWL TEAM OFFENSE • QB Bram Kohlhausen, TCU • RB Leonard […]
Opening weekend for the 2015 bowl season did not disappoint. Kenneth Dixon became college football’s new touchdown king in New Orleans. One Mountain West team, San Jose State, rallied in Orlando, while another, New Mexico, fell just short in Albuquerque. Appalachian State’s torrid comeback in Montgomery sealed the Mountaineers’ first bowl win in program history, […]
An unprecedented number of bowl games means a multifaceted bowl preview for you, dear CFB Huddle reader. Saturday opens the 2015-’16 bowl season with a hearty, five-game slate, featuring teams from the Mountain West, Sun Belt, MAC and Pac-12. Uh, and BYU. It doesn’t have a conference. So, yeah, the first bowl preview isn’t quite […]
College football has no Cinderella story this postseason quite as unlikely as that of Georgia State. The Panthers had to win their final four straight just to gain bowl eligibility. But even before running the table in the season’s final third, 2-6 Georgia State had already made history under third-year head coach Trent Miles. The […]
In this season’s college football record shop, the option offense is a piece of classic vinyl, unearthed from a milk crate of yesteryear’s hits. Put it on the turntable, give it a spin, and a few tracks in you ask yourself, why isn’t more contemporary music like this? The success of option teams this season […]
Thursday night football had all the joy of Artax sinking into the Swamp of Sadness. Truly, the college football season reached its bottom. “What went wrong? How’d they get to this point,” color analyst Jay Walker asked the pressing question from ESPNU’s broadcast of Texas State vs. Louisiana-Monroe. Walker referred specifically to ULM, a program […]
Earlier this week, as the first reports from the Mizzou student protest began trickling into the national consciousness, I decried the all-too-prevalent practice of hate-clicking. News as an industry is in dire straits, as Timothy Egan perfectly describes in Friday’s New York Times. The knee-jerk reactionary tone free from reporting, context or curiosity fosters the […]
I love this sport. It never ceases to amaze me how just about every Saturday in the fall, I’m left incredulous by at least one moment, game or performance. So much of the residual activity surrounding college football is exhausting. Some NCAA regulations are archaic, the modern concept of amateurism evolves at a glacial pace […]
Not since Week 1 has CFB Huddle had a Six-Pack for a Thursday slate. A six-game weeknight to open Week 9 is cause for celebration, even if it means diverting my attention from AMC’s annual horror marathon, Fearfest. You’ll have plenty more opportunity to catch the worthwhile installments in the Halloween franchise — the original, […]
Welcome to the Group of Five Top 10, where it’s more American than 1980s Hulk Hogan draped in the Stars and Stripes riding a bald eagle on the Fourth of July. Teams from the American Athletic Conference occupy four of the top five spots in the Top 10 through Week 8, including each of the […]
The Week 8 docket isn’t particularly impressive on paper, but you know what that means. Buckle in for upsets and wild finishes galore. Paring down to the six best games for the Week 8 Saturday Six-Pack was no easy task. Pinpointing any clear upset candidates is challenging — that’s why they’re upsets. To that end, […]
