The First College Football Playoff Rankings of 2015

CFB Playoff Rankings 1. Clemson 2. LSU 3. Ohio St. 4. Alabama 5. Notre Dame 6. Baylor 7. Mich St. 8. TCU 9. Iowa 10. Florida

— The Sports Brief (@TheSportsBrief) November 4, 2015

Bowl Season!

There are now 124 Division 1 (BCS) College Football teams.  And yes that includes UMass.  There are 35 Bowl Games.  And yes that includes the "Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl."  Quick math says that over 56% of teams will play in a Bowl Game.  Quite an achievement for those clubs.

If you are 6-6, you are going to a bowl game, if you are 6-7 like Georgia Tech, but lost in the Conference Championship game, you are still invited.  The Yellow Jackets could very well finish the season 6-8, but they played in a Bowl!

Every year we talk about the ridiculous Bowls that seemingly pop out of no where.  These are all real Bowl Games:

Belk Bowl
GoDaddy.com Bowl 
Pinstripe Bowl 
Potato Bowl 
Beef O'Brady's Bowl 
Little Caesar's Bowl
Military Bowl
Russell Athletic Bowl
Meineke Car Care Bowl
Armed Forces Bowl
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl
Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl
Heart of Dallas Bowl
Compass Bowl

Even all the good Bowl games have crazy sponsors now that muddle up the name.  I know College Football is all about money (have you seen the conferences lately?), but what an absolute joke and embarrassment these once proud Bowl games have become.

The "good" Bowl games suck this year too for the most part.  With Louisville winning the Big East and Wisconsin winning the Big 10, combined with Northern Illinois somehow getting to play this year's Boise State, Utah, or TCU, the BCS games are crap, outside of Oregon vs. Kansas State in the Fiesta Bowl and of course Alabama vs. Notre Dame in the BCS National Championship game.

At least the playoff is next season... Wait, not next season?  Ok the following year.  Great.

-Keefe

Is college football serious right now?

The whole reason anyone was going to tune into the Northwestern-Illinois game this weekend wasn't because we have two competitive football teams, nor because the game was being played at Wrigley Field. People were going to watch to see if anyone would get concussed running into the wall in the East endzone.

Now, according to ESPN, the NCAA/Big 10/school officials have decided that only one end zone will be used on offense throughout the entire game. Are you kidding me? What is this, one long overtime period? What baffles me is the idea to hold the game at Wrigley was obviously not a decision made overnight. It was most likely a long, drawn out process that factored in a lot of discussion and debate before being finalized. The dimensions of the field should have come at no surprise. What does come as a surprise is the ineptitude of the officials at hand who did not originally forecast any danger nor backlash from hosting a game where the fence and padding would be so close to the back of the end zone on the East side. These folks are being paid a lot of money to hold the positions they do, we should hope they'd be educated enough to recognize this type of concern early on in the process. However, what clouded their judgement was the novelty to hold a game at an historic monument of baseball history, much like Notre Dame and Army will do this weekend at Yankee Stadium. The difference is they have constructed a field which does not put the players in harms way like Wrigley Field's layout does.

Unfortunately, these officials were so caught up in making a meaningless game meaningful by adding in a novelty for a location, and thus ended making the entire event a joke. Well done. You managed to make people care even less about watching this game.

-Bess

I will not be winning any bracket pools this year

I just did my first walk through of the NCAA Tournament bracket on ESPN. My final four was Ohio State, Syracuse, Marquette and Notre Dame...with Ohio State defeating ND 66-60 in the championship. Safe to say I'll need to go back through and re-evaluate some terrible decisions I've obviously made along the way. Admittedly, I'm a huge ND and Marquette fan, and incorrectly predicted they would play each other in the Big East and National Championship games. Although I came surprisingly close with the Big East tournament.

Later today I'll post some quick hits and thoughts on the brackets released last night. But please note my alma mater Northeastern will be traveling to Storrs, CT tomorrow night to take on UConn in a battle of Huskies in the first round of the NIT. The game will be shown on ESPN2 at 7pm. The Huskies (NU) are a #5 seed, while the Huskies (CT) are the #4 seed in their bracket.

-Bess

Jimmy the Greek's Week 7 NFL picks

The Greek is about to head off and work the Northeastern football game. For those of you that haven't been following, The Greek's alma maters, both Northeastern and St. Paul's, are in the midst of seasons of futility. The Huskies are 0-6 and have been outscored 241-70. For those of you keeping score at home, that's an average of about 40-10. In fact they've lost a couple games 54-0 and 56-7 to B.C. and Villanova, respectively. Just awful. But equally as awful have been the Fighting Pelicans of St. Paul's, who stand at 0-4 and have been outscored 101-26, including back-to-back shutouts to start the season. So I'm gonna release a couple lines of my own today...who will lose by a bigger margin? NU plays Hofstra while SPS takes on St. George's. Both games are at their respective home fields, but let's be honest, that won't help anyone. They practically play all road games with the rabid fan bases they're bringing in at home.

In other news, BJal continues to suck at picking games, going back to his losing ways with an embarrassing loss last night. I hope to God he is right with his ND pick today, but I can't handle back-to-back Irish losses, especially the latter to B.C. But let's face it, BJal picking your favorite team is like the kiss of death.

Onto The Greek's Week 7 NFL picks...I'm just giving you the picks this week, no breakdowns. As always, lines are courtesy of the elder Greek's office pool on CBS Sports...

Vikings (+4.5) over Steelers
49ers (+3.5) over Texans
Chargers (-4.5) over Chiefs
Colts (-13.5) over Rams
Pats (-14.5) over Bucs
Packers (-6.5) over Browns
Jets (-6.5) over Raiders
Panthers (-6.5) over Bills
Falcons (+3.5) over Cowboys
Dolphins (+6.5) over Saints
Bears (+1.5) over Bengals
Cardinals (+6.5) over Giants
Eagles (-7.5) over Redskins

-The Greek

BJal's Lock du Jour - Saturday, October 17

I've been waiting for today for 2 weeks. Notre Dame-USC at 3:30. As a lot of you have probably figured out by now, there's one team we watch in this house and that's Notre Dame football. Today's game is absolutely huge for several reasons. The Irish haven't beaten USC in 7 years, and most of them haven't been close. There was the Bush Push game a few years back which derailed the Irish's title hopes, and today, Charlie Weis needs this win.

With an impressive victory, the #25 Irish will springboard up the rankings just in time for the BCS standings tomorrow night. The Michigan road victory hurt, especially since the Wolverines are playing like a Pop Warner team now, but there are still a few solid wins down the road that look more enticing than they did at the beginning of the season. Pitt took down Rutgers last night to move to 6-1, their lone loss on the road at NC State, which isn't good, but isn't the end of the world. There's the annual BC game, which is a must win against a decent ACC school, and Stanford at the end of the road, a team on the cusp of the top 25.

But this morning I almost threw up when BJal texted me and said his lock of the day is Notre Dame (+10). How could he do this to me? He's lost 3 in a row and is 4-7 overall now. He's like William H. Macy in the cooler. It's awful. Worse than coming down with the bubonic plague. So now I'm telling myself that he's lost 3 in a row and is due for a win, so hopefully ND covers AND wins outright. Can't wait.

BJal's Lock du Jour: Notre Dame +10 over USC
Overall: 4-7

-Bess