Are you ready for some (college) football?
College football kickoff 2024
The college football season gets fully underway this weekend, a sentence I had to write like that because there were a few games last weekend. That was called “Week 0,” though, because it’s mostly reserved for games overseas (or in Hawaii; or, sometimes just other random West Coast games; I don’t know, college football is weird).
This is the first season of the 12-team playoff, which expanded three-fold from the format it had used since its inception 10 years ago. As a result, the major sport with the most important regular season devalued its regular season, but it’s a net positive in my opinion. Even into November, every team in the top 25 will feel like they have a shot at the playoff — and they’ll be right!
It’s also the first season of batsh** crazy conference alignment. Four West Coast schools in a Big Ten that now truly stretches from coast to coast. Stanford and Cal in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Texas and Oklahoma in the SEC. Colorado in the Big 12. OK, that last one is normal, but it’s still a change from the last 13 years.
The new conferences are the opposite of playoff expansion: It leads to better matchups on a weekly basis, but it’s a net negative. Chasing that TV money, conferences took a sledgehammer to traditions. And the travel is just insane. If you have a minute, look at the West Coast teams’ schedules in the heart of Big Ten play — five or six straight weeks of going back and forth from their campus to the Midwest.
ANYWAY…
I, for the eighth straight season, will be covering Michigan for MLive. The Wolverines, you may have heard, are the defending national champions. They open on Saturday night (7:34 p.m ET kickoff) against Fresno State.
I made my predictions for the season with my fellow MLive beat writers. We all picked the same record, but only one of us (me) believes it will be enough to get Michigan into the playoff. (You can also watch a one-minute video of me making my prediction.)
Whether you root for the Wolverines, Fighting Irish, Demon Deacons, Scarlet Knights, or anyone else, enjoy the start of the season!
One last thing: Rich Hill, a veteran pitcher, signed with the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday. I mention this not because Hill is a Michigan alum nor because he made 12 starts with the Mets in 2021, pitching to an impressive 3.84 ERA, but because Hill was born on March 11, 1980. He’s 44 years old! I wrote about older ballplayers last month. Hill’s return means, just like that, a certain group of fans once again can watch a player older than they are. Those fans thought that ship has sailed and, if they care, are glad to see it return to port.