2021 Bowl Season Recap

For my regular readers looking for non college football topics, we’re almost done. Bowl season is over and the national championship is only a week away, so I will turn my attention to other sports and other leadership messages from around the world of athletics. 

As bowl season ends, there are many on and off field lessons to take from this year’s matchups and results. In no particular order, and with only slight biases to follow, here are my notes from the last week of games.

Agenda (it’s a long read):

-Tennessee scheme and leadership woes

-faking injuries

-teams that got and will get better (Carolina, Sparty, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Clemson, more)

-Matt Corral and opt outs

-UCLA’s vs. Rutgers’ actions 

-Notre Dame struggles

-Penn State leadership issues

-CJ Stroud vs. Bryce Young

-future of CFP

Tennessee is a great example of both scheme and leadership issues. Scheme-wise, it’s no doubt they can score points. They have a high powered offense that can march down the field in a hurry. However, that is a boom or bust offense and it puts defensive players in a horrible position because they are on the field the entire game. Whether it’s a three play TD drive or a 30 second three-and-out, defenders get no rest, and it showed toward the end of each half against an undermanned Purdue team. Of course I don’t like Tennessee and root for Purdue through marriage, but Coach Heupel’s lack of awareness reminds me of Chip Kelly with the Eagles. Remember how good the defense was after he left? Super Bowl champion good is the answer. UT will be dangerous offensively moving forward but they will also give up points at an alarming rate. Leadership wise, it was telling how many dumb penalties they got, which is a direct result of coaching. It’s getting a little personal now, but Tennessee easily has the dumpiest coaching staff in football, and that’s AFTER Jim Chaney left, so it’s no surprise the team lacks discipline. Leadership by example is the best and most fundamental way to provide guidance to a team, and that is missing on Rocky Top.

In the same game and across the season, an alarming trend of faking injuries became popular. This isn’t brand new, but is more common now since there’s no accountability for it. I get it, it’s hard to prove if a player is injured or not. But it is very obvious when a healthy player takes a knee to stop an offense’s momentum. When this happens, and it should be reviewable, it should result in a penalty and/or loss of that player for the rest of the series.

Bowl games are a great chance to see what a team will look like next season, and for coaches to see what they have in players. A lot of teams got better with these practices and games. South Carolina looked really good, fast and tough, and first year coach Shane Beamer broke out of his shell and appears poised to lift the program up. I feel the same about Mel Tucker and Michigan State — get some bonafide athletes up there and Sparty will compete for a long time. Arkansas is another team that turned itself around in a dramatic manner, and with some better athletes they will beat a lot of good teams in the future. Yes, all three are former Kirby Smart assistants, but I was also impressed with Oklahoma’s run game and Caleb Williams, along with Clemson’s strong finish to a season they consider disappointing. I expect both Clemson and Oklahoma to build on strong bowl showings and compete for conference titles next year. Even though they lost to UCF, Florida will be a much better team now that Murray County-native Billy Napier is at the helm. Baylor is another team with an impressive turnaround following Dave Arranda’s hiring. 

One of the more controversial and popular topics is Matt Corral and bowl opt-outs. I personally couldn’t imagine passing on one more chance to play with my teammates on a big stage, however, I fully support a young man’s right to sit out in fear of injury before a grueling NFL evaluation process. As an NFL coach or GM, I might have some leadership or teamwork concerns about that player, but I don’t think fans should look down on the players for their decisions. I admire Matt Corral’s toughness and passion, and luckily it looks like he will avoid serious injury time, but he did risk a projected first or second round selection by playing last night. I consider it a positive that he played, but I would understand if he didn’t, simple as that.

Speaking of opt-outs, UCLA took it to a whole new level by opting out as a team just hours before their game against NC State. I’m not trying to downplay the impacts of COVID, however, to cancel the day of a game where thousands of fans travelled across the country to see their kids play in possibly the last game of their career is embarrassing, and I hope the UCLA athletic department pays for it somehow. On the opposite end of that spectrum is Rutgers, where the fighting Gandolfinis opted in to a game at the last minute following another cancelation. They lost but played their guts out and fought hard the entire game against a good Wake Forest team. I’m not the biggest Schiano fan, but he sent a message to his team and recruits that he wants to play football and wants to play tough. UCLA sent the opposite message and now that Dan Lanning and Lincoln Riley are out west, Chip Kelly may see his window to win the PAC12 closing.

Oh Notre Dame. It might stem from old Villanova-Notre Dame basketball rivalries with my dad, or possibly I’m just tired of seeing better teams passed over for a decades old reputation, but Notre Dame must be stopped. They are now 0-8, maybe I’m missing one somewhere — Oh and eight — in BCS and NY6 bowl games. And many of those were not even close. That program has quality talent every year, especially on the offensive and defensive fronts. QB play and overall speed plagued them recently, but they have enough talent to compete. So something is missing. It could be coaching, it could be facilities, but overall I really think their schedule and lack of conference affiliation hurts them. If I were new head coach Marcus Freeman, I would be jumping on the table asking to be a part of the Big Ten West. Notre Dame should dominate that division, then play Michigan or Ohio State in the conference championship. They would have something more tangible to play for, a more regular schedule, and they could still play Navy as a non conference game every season. Geographically it makes sense, and I think it helps recruiting significantly. Until then, they have to really stand out before being allowed back into the national title conversation. 

Penn State… another team getting credit for decades old success. Certainly their legal issues will cloud the program forever in my eyes, however, their head coach adds more questions than solutions. There is not a coach in college football that runs his mouth as much as James Franklin without earning results to back it up. His success at Vanderbilt is more impressive than his tenure at Penn State so far. He was an outstanding play caller at Maryland as well. He has plenty of talent every year, and continues to underachieve. Something changed when he got to State College. Sure, blame last season on COVID, but this year he led his team to some inexplicable losses and really poor performances. It’s difficult to be a double digit win team in the Big Ten East, but to hover around .500 now for half his tenure is not enough for the level he talks. 

Shifting to a positive note — how exciting will the CJ Stroud/Bryce Young Heisman race be? No doubt, there will be plenty of the other contenders. Whoever Georgia’s QB ends up being will make some noise, in my mind either Brock Vandagriff or Gunner Stockton, and maybe even a defender or two from UGA. Will Anderson from Alabama will compete too, along with Caleb Williams of Oklahoma. I figure Tennessee’s quarterback will put up gaudy numbers, and plenty of others around the country. However, Bryce Young will return to defend his title and CJ Stroud completely turned it around after a poor showing against Oregon. There’s always something about Ohio State QBs that makes them shine extra in college, but while he’s in Columbus I expect Stroud to ball. 

And finally, the future of the college football playoff. I write about this often, because the current system is way too flawed to make sense. It does not necessarily reward success and allows teams that come from lesser backgrounds to be forgotten, right or wrong. I am always in favor of an automatic bid + wildcard model that allows conference champs and the best remaining teams play, and the total number can be whatever. But what I believe the future holds is a model more similar to the NFL with set divisions and division champions advance to the playoff along with a few wildcards. Unfortunately that means the number of teams in division one college football will reduce. I don’t think it needs to go down to 30 or so, but essentially the power five conferences will break out and establish their own divisions, maybe the ones that already exist, and then either a committee or a straight record system will determine a wild card process. The details are flexible in my mind, but the concept is undeniable, as teams should know throughout the season exactly where they stand to make the playoffs and what they need to do to make it. The sort of related addition I think college football needs is a “recruiting cap”, similar to a salary cap, where a team is only allowed a certain number of stars on a roster. That concept would be controversial, and very difficult to implement, but in order to the future to be fair, Georgia and Alabama have to somehow share the load. I only bring these changes up because something must happen or else the sport risks dissolving into an afterthought while kids play in whatever future amateur leagues exist, and then the opportunity for young men to receive an education disappears with it. 

I am always open to differing opinions, but will never stray from the idea that all sports, but especially football, offer tremendous leadership and development opportunities to thousands of young men and women in programs across the country.