Tag: Bama

College football: Updated ESPN FPI Ratings Through Week 9

You have to pick it right now: Which four teams are making the playoff?

As Week 9 of the college football season has come and gone, we turn the calendar to November and start to look for the teams that are going to make runs to the College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six bowl games.

This year there are plenty of teams alive for both with some interesting candidates starting to somewhat separate themselves from the rest of the field.

How many teams can realistically win a national championship this season?  And who are the ones most likely to?

Who has the hardest tests the rest of the season and who has the easier tracks?

Is Notre Dame closer to being seen as a contender than we may tend to think?

ESPN releases their Football Power Index each week to handicap how teams match up.  They did so following Week 9 of the college football season and here is how the top 25 teams nationally turned out.

4-star Carrollton TE Caleb Odom makes commitment

Four-star Carrollton standout Caleb Odom has decided where he plans to play college football

Four-star tight end Caleb Odom has committed to the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Odom, a member of the class of 2024, plays high school football for Carrollton High School in Carrollton, Georgia. The four-star picked Alabama over Florida, Ole Miss, Miami, Georgia and Texas A&M.

Odom is ranked No. 64 in the class of 2024. Odom is the fourth-ranked tight end and the 11th-best recruit in Georgia, per 247Sports.

Nick Saban and Alabama football recruiting are rounding into form in the 2024 recruiting cycle. The Crimson Tide have 14 commitments in the class of 2024. Alabama has the No. 5 recruiting class in the country and the third-best class in the SEC. Only Georgia (No. 1) and Florida (No. 3) have higher-rated SEC football recruiting classes than Alabama.

The Carrollton standout plays basketball and has excellent athleticism. In fact, the four-star prospect has a dual scholarship offer from LSU for both football and basketball. Odom is a bright student: He recently recited 103 digits of the pi.

Odom is considered as both a wide receiver and tight end recruit. We’ll see what position he plays for Alabama in college.

Odom announced his commitment via Twitter:

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Huge OT Michael Uini commits to UGA football

Four-star class of 2024 OT Michael Uini has committed to UGA

Class of 2024 four-star offensive tackle recruit Michael Uini has committed to the Georgia Bulldogs. Uini picked Georgia over Michigan and Alabama.

Uini visited Georgia in late June and evidently his visit to Athens made a strong impression on him.

Michael Uini is Georgia’s third offensive line commitment in the 2024 recruiting cycle. Uini joins Marcus Harrison and Malachi Toliver as offensive line coach Stacy Searels’ three verbal commitments.

Georgia and Kirby Smart currently have the No. 1 recruiting class in the country. The Bulldogs have 22 total commitments including a pair of offensive tackles. The Bulldogs are expected to be in the mix for several other talented offensive linemen over the next few days.

The four-star offensive tackle has been invited to the 2024 Under Armour All-America Game and the 2024 All-American Bowl on NBC.

Michael Uini plays high school football and basketball for Copperas Cove High School in Copperas Cove, Texas. Copperas Cove is located about an hour north of Austin.

The four-star offensive lineman is ranked as the No. 9 player at his position. Uini is the No. 27 player in Texas in the class of 2024. Uini is the No. 145 recruit in his recruiting class.

The 6-foot-7, 290-pound offensive lineman has a lot of potential and will continue developing over the next year before playing college football.

Hayes Fawcett of ON3 announced the Copperas Cove star’s commitment via Twitter:

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Pro Football Hall of Famers by college

Who is the most surprising (either included or not)?

The 2022 Pro Football Hall of Fame class was unveiled just before Super Bowl LVI as eight legendary football players are now headed to Canton where they’ll be put among football’s immortals.

Have you ever wondered where the best to ever do it went to college though?

Here are the ten college football programs to have produced the most Pro Football Hall of Fame members of any.

Twitter reaction to Tyler Buchner choosing Alabama

Roll Tide, Roll Tommy, Roll Tyler?

When former Notre Dame quarterback [autotag]Tyler Buchner[/autotag] entered the transfer portal earlier this week it took about three seconds for reports to surface that he would be looking at Alabama.  Late Thursday morning Buchner made his commitment to Nick Saban,[autotag] Tommy Rees[/autotag], and the Crimson Tide official.

Notre Dame loses depth at quarterback in 2023 and likely who would have been their starting quarterback in 2024.  Some Notre Dame fans and observers are losing their minds and others are barely fazed.  Some in the Yellowhammer State are less than thrilled.

We here at Fighting Irish Wire certainly wish Tyler the best at his new destination.  Here is a look at how just some of the college football world and fans from both Notre Dame and Alabama took the news.

2024 college football recruiting team rankings as of March 24, 2023

Notre Dame gets passed by a couple of rivals (they rarely play these days) and USC falls out of the top 50. See it all here…

As the dead period for college football recruiting ends, we thought it’d be a great time to do another check-in where teams rank nine months before the early signing period opens.

Being really high in the rankings right now doesn’t guarantee a high finish, but it certainly goes a long way toward preventing a brutal end in the rankings.

The same goes for those with a slow start. Just because USC isn’t ranked in the top 50 right now doesn’t mean it will not get commitments from a couple of highly regarded talents and soar up the rankings. Will it be able to get enough to get back into the top 10 like last year? Time will undoubtedly tell.

Notre Dame checked in at second place when we checked the rankings out a month ago, but have had no new commitments since. Not surprisingly, it fell a few spots.

The Irish are hosting their pro day Friday and have a big on-campus recruiting weekend they hope will help result in a few more commitments before too long.

We’ll continue to do this on at least a monthly basis throughout the non-game months and check in on how the team rankings are shaping up.  As of March 24, 2023, here are the top 50 team recruiting rankings on the 247Sports composite.

Will Sam Hartman follow Tommy Rees to Alabama?

I heart Hartman?

There is no doubt that a large part of the reason graduate quarterback Sam Hartman transferred to Notre Dame was to play in Tommy Rees’ offense.  What Notre Dame has run under Rees operates far more like NFL offenses than what Wake Forest does.

With Rees leaving Notre Dame for Alabama to run the Crimson Tide offense, one college football analyst wondered if Hartman would follow the former Fighting Irish quarterback to Tuscaloosa.  R.J Young of Fox Sports put out the following in the wake of Rees officially departing.

“There’s nothing to stop Tommy Rees from bringing Sam Hartman with him to Tuscaloosa.” – R.J. Young

So what are the chances Hartman is headed to the SEC next?

Based off what Hartman put on Twitter shortly after the Rees news was reported, it seems like a safe bet that the record-holding former Wake Forest quarterback is staying in South Bend. Check it out below.

It would appear Notre Dame has nothing to worry about with Hartman for 2023. Onward!

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CFP Rankings Projection: All four semifinalists should be easy selections

The question isn’t who is 1-4, but instead which order should those four appear?

Ladies and gentlemen, let me make something perfectly clear to you.

There is no debate. There is no drama. There is no on the fence regarding the College Football Playoff on Saturday night. None whatsoever, regardless of what a certain head coach wants you to think during halftime of the Big Ten championship game Saturday night.

In the history of the College Football Playoff, I have trouble remembering a year where the four selections were as obvious as they are in 2022. Outside of Georgia and Michigan, there are no perfect candidates to fill out the four playoff spots but there are two that are clearly the most deserving.

Here is our projection of the top 10 in Sunday’s College Football Playoff rankings:

Joel Klatt releases his new college football top teams rankings

Does Ohio State deserve to stay in the top 4?

On a day that saw four teams in the top 10 fall and plenty of drama and excitement, we’re left to shake out what’s going to happen in regards to the College Football Playoff and the rest of the postseason of the greatest sport on the earth.

Can Michigan possibly jump Georgia after the Wolverines routed Ohio State in the Horseshoe?

How high will TCU go after finishing their 11-0 regular season?  And is USC now a shoe-in for a top-four spot?

Fox Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt was quick to release his new top teams following the biggest games of Saturday.  Here is how Klatt ranked his top seven squads:

Kirk Herbstreit updates College Football top 6!

Herbstreit’s new top 6 is already out after a blowout in the Horseshoe!

He didn’t wait until Sunday morning to release his top six teams but instead mentioned them over the air before the close of Notre Dame-USC on Saturday night.  On a day where he started on ESPN’s College Gameday ahead of Ohio State-Michigan and ended on the call of Notre Dame-USC, Kirk Herbstreit released his top six teams following Week 13 of college football.

Here is how Kirk Herbstreit named the top six teams in college football at the end of rivalry week and entering the conference championship games.

Related: Four top 10 teams fall on crazy college football weekend