(08-12-2014 06:11 AM)Bearcat2012 Wrote:  Just a heads up ...on Cincinnati


..... they have bye weeks both of the first two weekends of the season and will subsequently have to play 12 straight weekends from September 12 until December 6.

This info is incorrect.

Thanks for the heads-up. I don't know how I missed that first weekend of November.

Btw Blake was a junior when he left not a senior


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(08-12-2014 07:20 AM)firmbizzle Wrote:  I think NIU or Marshall have the best odds of going undefeated. They play nobody. This new formula rewards average MAC & Sun Belt teams not good MWC or AAC teams.

In his mailbag questions Stewart Mandell of Sports Illustrated looks at the issue of going undefeated versus the issue of strength of schedule, which is the point that I was attempting to make in my earlier post in this thread:


"Does Marshall go undefeated this year, and if so, will the Herd get an invite to a bigger bowl game?

-- Scott Strosnider, Bridgeport, West Virginia

I’m glad you asked that, because I recently realized that Marshall could unwittingly become a fascinating test case in the first year of the new system. Yes, absolutely, Rakeem Cato and the Herd could go undefeated. Have you seen their absurdly easy schedule? And yet, they could also finish as the only undefeated team outside of the Power 5 and still miss out on the New Year’s Six bowl berth reserved for the highest-ranked champion of the other five leagues. And why is that? For the same exact reason – have you seen their absurdly easy schedule?

We were conditioned in the past to assume that going undefeated was the sole requirement for a Utah, Boise State or Hawaii to make a BCS bowl. No matter who those teams actually beat to finish undefeated, eventually the attrition above them would move them up high enough in the polls to qualify. But the selection committee isn’t just emphasizing strength of schedule in picking the four playoff teams. The same criteria apply to their full rankings.

So let’s say hypothetically that Marshall takes care of business against Miami of Ohio, Rhode Island, Ohio, Akron and its Conference USA slate, finishing 13-0. And let’s also suppose that East Carolina, led by its own big-numbers quarterback, Shane Carden, wins the American at 11-1 while going 2-1 against its out-of-conference power trio of South Carolina, Virginia Tech and North Carolina.

In that scenario, I’m guessing the Pirates finish higher than Marshall in the committee’s rankings and get a Peach or Cotton Bowl bid. But we won’t know until it happens the first time."


http://www.foxsports.com/college-footbal...bag-081314