The top three in my annual ranking of the best coaches in college football was easy. After that, things got more complicated. How much does recency bias factor in? For me, not as much as it does for Stewart Mandel, whose Top 25 can be found here. I’ve always given coaches more credit for what…
(Editor’s note: This article is part of the Bracket Central series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s & women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.) Drake’s in, so we can dispense with the arguments about whether Ben McCollum’s Bulldogs would have made the field of 68 without winning the Missouri Valley…
We’re a month removed from the national championship game, and the players who transferred from Notre Dame and Ohio State have found homes. So that’s given us a good bit of separation from the winter transfer portal window. Now that there has been time to assess all the roster movement, The Athletic spoke to 13…
The NFL Scouting Combine kicks off in a few days, and it provides a great callback to our annual Freaks List of college football phenoms. Some of those Freaks in this draft aren’t expected to work out this year, including East Carolina star cornerback Shavon Revel Jr., who is coming off of a torn ACL….
Shortly after the NBA Finals ended in June, Payton Pritchard sat with a pen and paper to write down his lessons from the series. Pritchard’s father, Terry, had long ago suggested journaling to organize his ideas. These days, Payton has five or six notepads, all filled with various thoughts. After grabbing the closest one, he…
Five years ago, this was a fairly simple exercise: Rank Alabama either No. 1 or 2, then drop Ohio State, Clemson or Georgia immediately before or after. Look like a genius 365 days later. But these days, it takes the GDP of a small country to keep a roster intact in college football. Ohio State…
One evening after the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff concluded with four blowout games staged on campus, ESPN host Scott Van Pelt and football analyst Tim Hasselbeck held a conversation that mirrored many like it taking place on social media and in barrooms. The host teams won by an average of 19.3 points, and the…
Baylor plays LSU on Tuesday night in the Texas Bowl, Dave Aranda’s team looking for its seventh straight win to finish the season in a matchup that sets the table for the Fiesta Bowl quarterfinal. The Bears bumping right up against a College Football Playoff game is fitting because one might argue Baylor could be…
David Yost has been coaching quarterbacks at college football’s highest level since 1996. His method of evaluating the sport’s most important position has not changed much over the years. The former offensive coordinator at FIU, Texas Tech, Utah State and Missouri has a checklist he uses to identify players he would like to coach. Does…
And now, 12 Final Thoughts from the first weekend of the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff. 1. The first on-campus Playoff game kicked off at 8:10 p.m. ET in front of 77,622 roaring fans at Notre Dame Stadium. You didn’t have to be in the 25-degree South Bend weather to get the chills. Anyone watching…