Tag: Power Five

The Wisconsin defense ranked in the top five in power five of this stat by PFF

Last year, the Wisconsin defense was nothing short of amazing for most of the season. They had star players in key positions like Chris Orr at linebacker, Zack Baun at edge rusher, as well as Eric Burrell and Reggie Pearson at safety.

Last year, the Wisconsin defense was nothing short of amazing for most of the season. They had star players in key positions like Chris Orr at linebacker, Zack Baun at edge rusher, as well as Eric Burrell and Reggie Pearson at safety.

Pro Football Focus tweeted the top five power five defenses last season in defensive touchdowns. Wisconsin ranked at fourth tied with the Oregon Ducks at four defensive touchdowns behind Missouri and Utah with five, and Illinois with six. Wisconsin had 21 total turnovers with 11 interceptions and 10 fumble recoveries that led to a plus-three turnover margin overall for the Badgers.

The Badgers defense has been consistently rated highly by analysts and other coaches, yet it is a very underrated aspect of this Wisconsin team. This team even had three big parts of their defense from last season return for this year in Reggie Pearson, Jack Sanborn, and Eric Burrell before the postponement of the season. It will be tough to not watch them play this fall, but it will be promising to see how some of our recent highly rated recruits perform in the coming years.

What potential hurdles does a college basketball season face?

Over the last couple of weeks, all attention has been focused on the ongoing saga relating to the tumultuous 2020 college football season.

Over the last couple of weeks, all attention has been focused on the ongoing saga relating to the 2020 college football season due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has been tumultuous, to say the least.

With the football season in jeopardy, the basketball season has been a bit of an afterthought to many in the sports media. But not to college administrators, who are already concerned about the prospect of men’s and women’s hoops this fall.

A report from ESPN on Thursday provided an overview of the obstacles facing the college basketball season and what the powers that be are saying about the current plan.

An immediate challenge is the same one that doomed all levels of football below the Power Five: having the resources to maintain testing standards and safety protocols. While wealthier programs may be able to foot the bill for this, smaller schools can’t.

This inequity would be even more pronounced in college basketball than in football, as there is no distinction between FCS and FBS programs within Division I. As Jeff Borzello notes, the biggest threat to the season is still ensuring player safety at the institutional level.

The biggest hurdle, obviously, will be the virus itself. As one conference official noted, not much has changed between when the sport shut down on March 12 and today — beside the risk of serious heart issues stemming from the coronavirus. — Jeff Borzello

But aside from the primary threat of the virus, secondary logistical issues facing administrators are complicating the plans for the sport.

For example, the Pac-12 and Ivy League have already delayed the beginning of the season until at least Jan. 1. Based on the sentiment of figures in other leagues, they probably won’t be the last to do so.

UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma said he is expecting a January start at the earliest across the board. If that were the case, conferences would in all likelihood move to cancel nonconference games.

This would make any potential NCAA Tournament selection process extremely difficult, as such a format would render the NET meaningless. For mid-major conferences, they would have very few opportunities to prove their worth to the committee.

While Big Ten teams would play 16 of 20 games against Quadrant 1 opponents, the Colonial Athletic Association would likely feature zero Quad 1 games. But as one conference official pointed out, differentiating among potential NCAA tournament teams is why there’s a selection committee. — Jeff Borzello

The common theme among conference and school administrators seems to be limiting travel and keeping the season relatively region-locked.

The idea of attempting to replicate the NBA’s successful bubble experiment, which has resulted in zero positive results over the last four weeks, is reportedly gaining momentum among decision-makers.

Multiple potential formats are being discussed, including dividing conferences into smaller groups, each with their own bubble.

One option floated was to split a conference into three groups, put the groups in mini-bubbles for a weekend, play a round-robin format and then do it again two weeks later. Several sources mentioned ideas focused on mini-bubbles and teams playing several games in the same weekend. Another idea mentioned was to have two large bubbles per conference, one in December and one in January, in order to get a full conference season in. It’s unclear if any of these ideas will work, but the emphasis on keeping things regional and isolated is of utmost importance — as well as not testing the limits of amateurism. — Jeff Borzello

As Borzello noted, however, this would be a serious challenge to the purportedly amateur status of college athletes. The same hurdle seems to have tabled such discussions for football.

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott echoed this sentiment, saying, “Unlike professional sports, college sports cannot operate in a bubble.”

Still, hypothetical talks of a bubble will surely disappoint college hoops fans, as it seems to signal that allowing fans in the arena is not a possibility currently on the table.

As the ESPN report notes, the men’s NCAA Tournament nets $1 billion annually in revenue. Having the tournament is the top priority at the moment, as revenue for schools from ticket sales pales in comparison to conference payouts from the postseason.

The men’s tournament brings in nearly $1 billion worth of revenue, and the financial boost it provides to its member schools is significant. The NCAA distributes tournament money to its conferences in “units,” with each one being worth roughly $280,000, a number that rises by a couple of thousand each year. And that amount if paid out annually over six years, so even teams that are one-and-done earn around $1.7 million per season for their conferences. Having fans in the stands is lower on the priority list.

While the report provides some clarity as to how college administrators currently view the COVID-19 situation as it relates to basketball, we will likely have a much better idea about the fate of the season once that of the football season is resolved. Should it be postponed or canceled entirely, it would be a bad sign about the prospect of a basketball season.

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SEC must decide if it wants to fight a world war in college sports

Will the Big Ten suffer from its decision to be the first Power Five conference to give up on the pursuit of fall football in 2020?

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by our sister site Trojans Wire and has been republished in its entirety below. 

It is a fair question to ask, though we won’t know the answer for a few years at the very least: Will the Big Ten suffer from its decision to be the first Power Five conference to give up on the pursuit of fall football in 2020?

Plenty of the people I follow on #CollegeSportsTwitter think — quite reasonably, I might add — that if the SEC, ACC and Big 12 want to have a true College Football Playoff, even though the Big Ten and Pac-12 have opted out, that is their right.

It’s a fair point.

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I have my reservations about holding a four-team playoff with only three major conferences left to play (if we’re able to play football at all), but the argument that the Big Ten and Pac-12 didn’t consult the other conferences, and therefore have to live with their own choices, is entirely reasonable.

After all, this wasn’t a group decision made by all Power Five conferences. EVERY conference is acting on its own, so if some conferences want to stop and other conferences want to play, there is no unanimous agreement on the ground rules. Therefore, the conferences sticking it out can reasonably claim to have the playoff — and the money from a playoff — for themselves.

I will address the playoff question in greater depth in a separate piece, but for now, I want to focus on this particular tension point: The Big 12 is a formidable conference, and Clemson of the ACC is a superpower, but we all know which is the strongest, deepest, toughest conference in major college football: It is the SEC.

The ACC was the best conference in the country in 2016, and the Big Ten has had its moments, but over the past three seasons, the SEC has been king, and there’s really no debate to be had. Georgia and Alabama vied for the 2017 title; LSU went unbeaten last year in a display of supreme dominance; Alabama made the 2018 title game with Georgia very nearly getting in the playoff as well. If Clemson isn’t winning the national championship these days, the SEC is. The SEC has placed at least one team in the national championship game of college football — BCS or playoff — in 13 of the last 14 seasons, the one exception being the 2014 season’s title game between Ohio State and Oregon.

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So, as we contemplate a world in which the SEC, Big 12, and ACC all try to play college football while the Big Ten and Pac-12 sit on the sidelines, the really big drama — bigger than all the others — focuses on the two richest and most powerful conferences in college sports, the SEC and the Big Ten.

By most if not all measurements, the SEC and Big Ten are the top two money-making conferences in college sports, with the ACC and Big 12 behind them and the Pac-12 struggling to keep pace. They jockey for position, and the positions (one versus two) might change from time to time, but the SEC and the Big Ten are the top two. They have been for many years.

With the Big Ten’s decision to step away from fall football, though, some people are wondering if political, economic, and recruiting-based blowback is about to hit the Big Ten.

Let’s say that happens. Will the blowback fade away… or will it stick?

We don’t know, but it’s a fascinating question to entertain.

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Let’s ask a follow-up question: What might cement a negative trend for the Big Ten?

A good answer: If the SEC not only plays football, but does so SUCCESSFULLY, with relatively minimal incident or disruption? If that DID happen, it would probably be a game-changer.

How much of a game-changer? Hard to say, but probably enough that a chunk of top-tier recruits who might have previously targeted Ohio State or Penn State would instead commit to elite SEC programs. While it might be just the thing Jim Harbaugh at Michigan would need to get a more level playing field in the Big Ten East Division, it could be a big negative for the Big Ten on a national level.

The SEC could push down Ohio State and create a long-term reality in which it will always have the upper hand against the Buckeyes in any possible playoff semifinal… and better yet, it might not even have to face Ohio State in many playoff games in the coming decade.

The opportunity for the SEC is obvious right now: If it can manage to play, it will turn some heads among recruits.

The obvious and necessary question to ask: Is it worth it in a pandemic, especially if players can’t be given hazard pay or guaranteed health care?

The obvious and necessary follow-up question: If the SEC isn’t forced to shut down its fall season in the coming weeks, and it gets to the point where it at least tries to play a Week 1 game, what will be the standards used by the league to either continue or discontinue play in the event of an outbreak on one SEC team?

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I have my own views of what the standards should be, but the point is less on setting a standard and more on the larger possibility that the SEC could be so consumed with driving a stake into the Big Ten that it overplays its hand and gets caught in a coronavirus web of its own making.

The SEC might think this is a World War I in college sports, a chance to destroy a rival conference. To be clear, I understand the rationale and can see why the SEC would go forward under these conditions. The Big Ten, one could argue, might have made a reasonable decision to shut down, but still conducted a TERRIBLE process which was slipshod, arbitrary and abrupt.

The SEC, by all appearances, is being cautious. It is certainly not a mistake to wait a few more weeks — that can’t hurt anyone — but if it dives into the lake known as Week 1 (playing actual live games) and then gets hit with a severe coronavirus outbreak, this could all boomerang back at the SEC… and the politics of recruiting might shift to the Big Ten in the end, undercutting the SEC’s prime goal.

The SEC could be entering a world war of college sports.

As with any decision to enter a war, one must consider the damage and the cost first, before considering the possible upside of victory.

First, do no harm, as any doctor or medical expert would tell you.

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Gators News: August 12, 2020

In the middle of one of the wildest weeks in recent memory, the Power 5 conferences make their life-or-death decisions on football season. 

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It is the middle of one of the wildest weeks in recent memory, as the respective Power Five conferences make their life-or-death decisions on the 2020 fall football season.

So far, the Big Ten and the Pac-12 has decided to cancel their schedules, leading to a great deal of discussion on the virtues of such a move. USA TODAY Sports’ Dan Wolken believes that college football’s inevitable demise perfectly represents America’s handling of coronavirus, while he colleague Christine Brennan claims that there is no joy in canceling Big Ten and Pac-12 seasons, despite what opportunists will say.

Taking a look at the other leagues, the presidents of the Big 12 schools took no action on Tuesday to cancel their games, and it is expected that they will release a schedule soon.

Here is the news from around Gators Wire.

Around the Swamp

It’s great to be a Florida Gator!

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Pac-12 announces it will not play college football this fall

The announcement by the two leagues foreshadows a series of moves that may eventually lead to the cancellation of the entire FBS season.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by USA TODAY Sports and has been republished in its entirety below. 

The Pac-12 has decided to not play its football season this fall over concerns that the sport carries too much risk for athletes, the conference said Tuesday, joining the Big Ten as the second member of the Power Five to elect not to play over the health issues raised by the coronavirus pandemic.

Combined, the announcement by the two leagues less than two hours apart foreshadow a series of similar moves that may eventually lead to the cancellation of the entire Bowl Subdivision season.

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“The health, safety and well-being of our student-athletes and all those connected to Pac-12 sports has been our number one priority since the start of this current crisis,” said Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott. “Our student-athletes, fans, staff and all those who love college sports would like to have seen the season played this calendar year as originally planned, and we know how disappointing this is.”

All Pac-12 sports competitions will be postponed until at least Jan. 1, the league said. The decision came following a meeting of the Pac-12 CEO Group.

In addition to canceling the football season, the announcement impacts a number of other fall sports in the Pac-12, including volleyball and soccer.

The remaining members of the Power Five remain scheduled to play beginning in September. Commissioners from the Big 12 and SEC have preached a patient approach while evaluating health concerns that may arise due to the coronavirus.

“Unlike professional sports, college sports cannot operate in a bubble,” Scott said. “Our athletic programs are a part of broader campuses in communities where in many cases the prevalence of COVID-19 is significant.  We will continue to monitor the situation and when conditions change we will be ready to explore all options to play the impacted sports in the new calendar year.”

The conference will guarantee all scholarships and will encourage the NCAA to grant athletes an additional season of eligibility, the Pac-12 said.

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The Pac-12 announced on July 31 an altered schedule of 10 conference games beginning no earlier than Sept. 26. Like the Big Ten and SEC, the league opted against playing non-conference games as a way to provide scheduling flexibility and slightly minimize the potential risks in travel and competing against teams from areas outside the Pac-12 footprint.

The postponement of the Pac-12 fall sports season doesn’t directly impact other Power Five leagues due to this removal of non-conference play. (Only the ACC and Big 12 allowed a single non-league game under certain conditions.) However, removing the Pac-12 and Big Ten from the season does raise questions about the ability to conduct a hypothetical postseason and College Football Playoff without a complete roster of conferences.

While not as deep with championship contenders as the Big Ten and SEC and lacking a Clemson-like national front-runner, the Pac-12 was predicted to have at least on team, Oregon, be a factor in the playoff chase.

The Ducks were ranked ninth in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll. Another two teams, No. 17 Southern California and No. 20 Utah, joined Oregon in the preseason Top 25.

In all, four FBS conferences have decided against playing in the fall, with the Big Ten and Pac-12 joined by two Group of Five leagues, the MAC and Mountain West. Two independent programs, Connecticut and Massachusetts, have also decided to shift toward the potential for a spring season.

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SEC Commish Greg Sankey appears on the Dan Patrick Show, discusses state of season

SEC Commish Greg Sankey appeared on the Dan Patrick Show Tuesday discussing pressure that ADs in other power conferences are feeling.

With the Big 10 and Pac-12 reportedly being close to canceling the 2020 season due to the coronavirus pandemic, or at least delaying it until the spring, the eyes of the college football world have been turned on the rest of the Power Five, namely the SEC, to see how it plans to address these developments.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey shed some light on those issues in his appearance on the Dan Patrick Show Tuesday morning. Discussing pressure that administrators in other power conferences are feeling, Sankey said that his league’s decision to delay the start of the season to Sep. 26 has given it more flexibility.

He believes that spreading out the preseason schedule and delaying the start of full practices has allowed the league to evaluate developing situations at member schools and others, and with the start slated for nearly a month after students begin returning to campus, he said the league will have time to reevaluate how the presence of other students affects the situation for players.

Sankey also gave no assurances that competition would happen, though. Responding to hypothetical discussions of the SEC playing by itself even if the rest of the Power Five canceled, he said that while it could happen, it probably wouldn’t be the best course of action.

Moving to the topic of player freedoms, Sankey reaffirmed that players have the option to opt-out and retain both their scholarship and spot on the team. In terms of eligibility preservation for players who choose to opt-out, he said that he expects the NCAA to reach a solution within the week.

The full interview can be viewed below. Sankey joins the show around the 28-minute mark.

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Gators News: August 11, 2020

College football’s elite conferences are scrambling to figure out whether or not to play a fall season in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Man alive, the sports world a swirling maelstrom of chaos currently, with college football’s elite conferences scrambling to figure out whether or not to play a fall season in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

This morning, Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Star opined on the Big 10’s swing and miss yesterday, dealing a potentially brand-damaging blow to the conference, leaving the league looking “dumb and weak”.

As of Tuesday, this appears to be where the Power Five conferences stand.

In corroboration with the above tweet, the following was offered on the latest sentiment from the Southeastern Conference.

At this point, who really knows what is going to happen?

Anyways, here’s Wonderwall the rest of the news from Gators Wire.

Around the Swamp

It’s great to be a Florida Gator!

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pushes for college sports to play this fall

DeSantis said many student-athletes are safer on campus and in the structured environment that football provides than otherwise.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at USA TODAY Sports and has been republished in its entirety below. 

With the Mid-American Conference canceling its football season this fall and Big Ten presidents voting against playing in the fall, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is still hopeful that other Power Five conferences will be able to play.

“The Big Ten college presidents may have a little different sense of this. I think the Southeastern Conference, ACC, most of those institutions want to play because I think they see how important it is for the well-being of their student-athletes,” DeSantis said Monday on Fox Sports Radio. “I’m 100 percent in favor of it.”

Speaking with host Clay Travis, DeSantis endorsed the #WeWantToPlay movement, championed by Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence, which calls for the major conferences to take steps to ensure games can be played this fall.

DeSantis said many student-athletes are safer on campus and in the structured environment that football provides than they would be otherwise in regard to coronavirus.

“Very few of the folks in that cohort are becoming seriously ill,” he said. “Just because you test positive, most of these athletes really never actually end up getting ill.”

However, the long-term effects of the novel coronavirus are not fully known. A recent study found about a quarter of young adults were still not back to their normal health weeks after contracting the infection.

DeSantis said he not only wants to see football played on college campuses this fall, but at high schools across Florida as well.

“Keeping kids out of school and denying them the ability, those who want to to play sports, those are going to have long-term ramifications,” he said. “You’ll be dealing with problems I think for society for years and years to come.”

He said he plans to go to a lot of high school games this fall to show his support. Noting that Florida has already conducted a NASCAR race with limited fans in the stands, as well as hosting the NBA’s bubble, DeSantis said the return of sports is important for the country as a whole in getting back to normal.

“You see everybody else is playing — the NBA, Major League Baseball … the PGA (Tour) … soccer is playing — there’s no reason we can’t play high school and college athletics,” he said. “It’s very, very important.”

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Players react as potential college football cancellation looms

With the college football season appearing to be in jeopardy, players across the country took to social media to voice their desire to play.

On Sunday night, reports began to surface that the Big 10 university presidents were close to moving to cancel the 2020 fall sports season, including college football. The news came after the Group of Five’s Mid-American Conference announced that it was canceling all fall competition earlier in the day.

With the college football season appearing to be in jeopardy, players across the country took to social media to voice their concerns and desire for a season to be held. It started with Clemson quarterback and projected first-overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft Trevor Lawrence, who posted a series of tweets pointing out that players may be safer at school with the program than some would be at home, if university policy dictated they could no longer be on campus.

Players nationwide followed Lawrence’s lead, posting their support for the “We Want to Play” movement. That list included Florida running back Lorenzo Lingard, who is eligible this season after transferring from Miami, and defensive lineman Kyree Campbell.

Campbell, a senior in 2020, is expected to see a bigger role on the team than he has in the past. If the season were to be canceled, its unclear what the course of action would be in terms of eligibility relief. Though the NCAA is currently allowing players to opt-out of the season and retain their eligibility, its unlikely such a provision could be guaranteed to all players should all competition this year be nixed.

Tight end Kyle Pitts also joined his teammates in voicing his support for a season in the fall on Monday morning.

After news broke late Sunday night that the Big 10 administrators would be having an impromptu meeting to discuss the season, Lawrence posted once again, this time sharing a graphic of joint demands between the “We Are United” movement (started by Pac-12 players to ensure safety standards, compensation and other improvements for student-athletes) and the “We Want to Play” movement. Among the list of demands Lawrence posted was improved open communication between athletes and officials, with the ultimate goal of forming a college football players association.

Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields, currently the projected No. 2 pick in next year’s draft, also tweeted his support for these demands.

On Monday morning, it was reported that at the meeting Sunday night, Big 10 presidents voted 12-2 to cancel the season, with Iowa and Nebraska reportedly being the dissenting votes. Dan Patrick reported Monday that the Pac-12 will follow the Big 10’s lead shortly.

Though the SEC, ACC and Big 12 are currently holding firm and hoping to see how the return of students to campus in the coming weeks, ESPN reported Sunday night that those leagues could be forced into action by decisions from the Big 10 and Pac-12.

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LOOK: Alabama football players tweet ‘#WeWantToPlay’

Alabama football players tweet about the #WeWantToPlay movement in support of playing in the 2020 college football season.

The #WeWantToPlay movement has gone viral among college football players, as the threat of a cancelled 2020 season lingers throughout tweets and headlines of high profile journalists, media personalities and news outlets.

Alabama players are now taking a stand on social media by using the hashtag. While there has not been any news surrounding the SEC’s 2020 plans, the athletes stand united.

Here’s what members of the Crimson Tide had to say:

Alabama quarterback Mac Jones, who is not often on social media, tweeted the hashtag.

Najee, who was involved in the creation of the movement, also included a picture with a list of demands by the student athletes.

Tight end Miller Forristall argues that the Alabama football facility will be the safest place for the players when the school year begins.

Offensive lineman Landon Dickerson is in his final year of eligibility and decides to point out potential hypocrisy in the decision-making process.

Alabama’s sophomore kicker Will Reichard suffered a hip injury that hindered his freshman year, after nursing it back to health and training in the offseason, he fears it may all go to waste.

Defensive back Brandon Turnage makes sure his voice is heard.

These are just a few players at Alabama that made their voices heard on social media.

Roll Tide Wire will keep you updated on the state of the 2020 college football season and what plans are made by the SEC or the University of Alabama.