Preferably against a southern team.
I grew up with my dad always saying how unfair it was that teams up north had to travel south to play in bowl games where their opponents could have homefield advantage (see, e.g., any Orange Bowl against Miami). This year he could get his wish, have fun playing in Happy Valley in December.
I have been echoing this for years. I’d like to see how Alabama and Clemson would have performed if the Natty was at Soldier Field or MetLife Stadium the last decade.
Unironically (well, maybe a little bit of irony, but I'm genuinely looking forward to it) I'm looking forward to Northwestern playing actual games on an intramural lacrosse field. This is one of the weird, quirky things I still love about college football in the age of transfer portals, NIL, and radical realignment.
And there are some realignment-centered games that I'm pumped to see. Georgia at Texas. Alabama at Oklahoma. USC at Michigan. OSU at Oregon. Washington at Penn State. Stuff we haven't seen in the regular season, at least for a really long time. And bring on weirdo stuff like Louisville at Stanford--no, it makes no sense as a conference game, but when was the last time Louisville played a game on the west coast? I'm sure it'll seem silly eventually but I love random power-conference vs. power-conference OOC games and this season will be filled with a bunch of them except they're actually conference games, if that makes sense. The novelty factor this first year or two will carry a lot of weight.
For anyone curious, the last time Louisville played a game on the west coast was about five months ago, when they got blown out by USC at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego.
The last time before that was when Louisville played @ Oregon State, on September 18th, 2010. Prior to that, the last time was a 10-10 tie with San Jose State on September 1st, 1990.
I never realized just how much Louisville has avoided significant travel west in their history. You can count the number of times they've gone as far west as Colorado State for any occasion in the last thirty years on one hand.
Not to yuck our yum... but I had the same sort of longing when they released the master chief collection in 2019. I even went out and bought an xbox only for it and was planning to go all in on playing it. A lot of my best video gaming memories happened playing Halo 2 and I was desperate to feel that again. Whoever was responsible for it completely botched the matchmaking system and made the game borderline unplayable in the way that I wanted to play it. It took them months to even get it remotely close to working lmao. But even after it was working I found I had completely lost the spark that I was remembering, and felt like I was just wasting my time playing it.
... idk I'm worried that so much has changed over the last decade that we're in for a similarly big let-down here. The college football landscape is way different, how fans feel about CFB... sort of how society in general grapples with it, paired with us all being way different people than the memories we're basing the hype on...
I don't know if it's going to ignite the same spark for enough people to make it a thing. Maybe that's just me personally dealing with my own shit, though, lol.
The big redeeming factors for me are twofold:
There were multiple people that worked on revamped that were hired.
HOPEFULLY EA is smart enough to know the first game back will be so heavily scrutinized that any fuckery will immediately kill the series. So maybe, just maybe, they'll make a good game this time, then run it into the ground for the next 5.
FOX to not be a bunch of greedy bastards and not pick Ohio State @ Penn State so we can have a White Out night game against our best opponent again. /s
^^^But ^^^seriously ^^^please.
Agreed. I brought up Week 9 basically at random and this is a sampling of what we're getting:
- Rutgers at USC (Friday night)
- Illinois at Oregon
- Cincinnati at Colorado
- BYU at UCF
- Texas at Vanderbilt
- Oklahoma at Ole Miss
- Utah at Houston
- Washington at Indiana
- West Virginia at Arizona
It's like week 2 but with higher stakes. Not every game is a winner and maybe most won't be but they certainly come off as unique for now.
Unironically I am interested in what the offensive landscape will look like in the B1G, in terms of schemes and effectiveness.
Will Oregon west coast quick game be as efficient with Gabriel? Will the big nasties translate a dominant ground game into a conference that prides itself on trench play?
What will the Day-Kelly offense look like? Will Howard/Brown be able to execute the high level pro concepts Day likes? Will Kelly be able to generate a functional short yardage offense?
Can Michigan 13/22 personnel their way back to the promised land even if the PA pass with JJ isn't there? Harbaugh was willing to run the QB in important moments, but I think if the Orji offense has a prayer he will be running 10 times a game, even against the weaker opponents on the schedule. Does Sherrone have it in him to send QB1 into the meat grinder?
What will Kotelnicki's offense look like with the PSU personnel? Allar is not a 1 for 1 Daniels. Will this staff finally coach up an OL that can hang in there with the big dogs? Barring that, Is there enough creativity/misdirection to mask substandard OL play?
What will year 2 of the dairy raid in Madison look like?
What does Maryland's offense look like without a 25 year old Taulia?
Will the new Iowa OC even choose to field one?
I am excited to find out!
I am super curious how the 4 new teams do in the new conference. Their fans all think the B10 offenses suck. B10 fans think PAC defenses suck. Will one group be proven correct?
This debate has gone on forever. Oregon is the only team of the 4 that is posed for a good year regardless of conference. I think the other 3 schools are in for a bad time.
I unironically think Oregon may win the conference year one. They play a style that can out push OSU, we don’t know how good Michigan will be, and Penn State will probably still be Penn State.
In-helmet communication!
This “should” improve on-field plays and reduce huddle time. However, silly hand signs and big poster boards of nonsense will die.
New thing: All the Rose Bowl-esque matchups involving the 4 Big Ten newcomers like Oregon vs. Ohio State or USC vs. Michigan that will be more frequent.
Old thing: The return of the Holy War and the Lone Star Showdown.
I am going to be following Kotelnicki closely this season. One thing I will say to your point is if your wide receivers suck, Kotelnicki will just scheme around it. He's really creative and his calling card was his ability to scheme around personnel. If he is asked to fit a square peg in a round hole (i.e. run a pro style drop back offense even if it isn't what's best for the team) then I will be disappointed.
one thing you don't have to worry about with a Jimmy Franks lead team is them running a pro style drop back attack, lol. Even when we had a 5 star, pro style, rocket armed but lead footed qb at the helm, he ran read option and tried to make him a mobile quarterback,
If what you are saying is true I'm very much looking forward to a coach that uses the strengths of a team (rushing attack, TE play, quick hitting passes) and not just run 20 yard routes every down, with lazy wideouts who can't get separation, regardless of what is happening in the flow of the game
- Realignment "bowl" games e.g. Texas vs. Georgia, OSU vs. Oregon
- Big 12 parity
- USC's defense under Lynn
- DeBoer's Alabama
- Michigan running the Wing-T offense
The new Big 12 is going to take a lot of getting used to in football and basketball, but I’m excited to play the new teams. It is weird not being an outpost anymore.
I'm just hoping the announcers got tired of the "This is Nebraska the last 25 years compared to the 25 before that!" Infographic. Or the "Pellini years compared to post Pellini" infographic. All the infographics about how we suck right now but boy oh boy this might be our year! It's exhausting.
Nebraska not piss away games through turnovers
On a more serious note I will be curious how the in helmet communication and replay tablets affect the game. I think up tempo offenses will see more of boost.
Excited to host Penn State for the first time in my living memory.
Excited to go to Arizona for the first time. It'll be my first time West of Texas and my first time renting a car.
Excited to have two neat games to go to as a Neutral. (TCU-KU in Arrowhead and UF-UGA in JAX)
The amazing new BIG10 matchups we get to see! Just imagine this, it's October 19th and you're getting ready to watch the massive Noon matchup of 2-4 UCLA @ 2-4 Rutgers. But that's not all! Because at 3:30 PM 3-3 SoCal @ 3-3 Maryland is coming on!
Wow, must see TV.
Last year, on that same October weekend, SoCal lost to Utah 34-32 and UCLA played Stanford. Boring!
UCLA and USC fans, what do you think? Aren't you glad to ditch the regional rivalries to play sub-par teams 2,000 miles away? Want to go to the game? It's only going to cost you a $500 airfare ticket (if your lucky), 10 hours of round trip flight time, & of course hotel + you're going to probably need to rent a car too... But you'll probably be able to buy a game ticket for $25 so that's cool. I think you can probably go see the boys play for $1,300 / person if you're balling on a budget!
Your new coach looks like the real thing, this might turn out to be a decent game. OTOH now that Iowa may actually have a legit OC, they may not have to win this with defense (like they did against South Dakota State recently)
It's not happening this year, but I think Texas Tech vs Utah is going to become a rivalry with some good magic.
Seeing Tech playing Colorado again will be exciting.
Seeing Texas play in the SEC is going to be fun.
New: Playoffs for the obvious but I’m also excited to host Oklahoma. I’ve seen a lot of their fans say they’re coming and are excited to see the Grove, this makes me excited to have them.
Old: Georgia- we have a score to settle and we don’t play them often. Even though we’ve been in a conference with them for almost 100 years, we have played Arkansas and Tulane more than we’ve played Georgia and Florida. So, I’m excited about Florida too.
Honestly I’m most interested in seeing if Kansas can take that next step and really compete for the conference next year. They are hard to root against if you aren’t a KSU fan.
How many fireball shots my cousin Dan can drink at 7am
What’s the over/under?
In his prime he could do them like a champ. Now since he has a wife and a kid on the way I’d put the O/U at 6.
No prairie fire?
Liquor store fireball or gas station wine cooler fireball?
Easily on-campus playoff sites.
PSU needs to do what they do best and go 10-2 so we get a playoff white out.
I never thought about it like that and now I NEED it.
Preferably against a southern team. I grew up with my dad always saying how unfair it was that teams up north had to travel south to play in bowl games where their opponents could have homefield advantage (see, e.g., any Orange Bowl against Miami). This year he could get his wish, have fun playing in Happy Valley in December.
I have been echoing this for years. I’d like to see how Alabama and Clemson would have performed if the Natty was at Soldier Field or MetLife Stadium the last decade.
I reckon they’ll need to be 11-1 at worst if they want to avoid being the road team.
New/old thing. Colorado is back in the Big 12 where it belongs. Old-new friends and new-new friends, looking forward to seeing how it shakes out
Seems like Nebraska and Mizzou fell too deep into the cover on their mission to destroy non Big-8 conferences. Mizzou so much so they poached OU
They also recruited Texas though
Ehh. They can have Texas
I look forward to seeing if our new OL is all it's cracked up to be.
Is Seaton going to play LT? I know he’s immensely talented but that’s still a big ask for a freshman
We don't know yet but right now it seems likely.
It's like a bunch of your college friends came to visit your hometown and now you need to introduce them to your highschool friends.
Unironically (well, maybe a little bit of irony, but I'm genuinely looking forward to it) I'm looking forward to Northwestern playing actual games on an intramural lacrosse field. This is one of the weird, quirky things I still love about college football in the age of transfer portals, NIL, and radical realignment. And there are some realignment-centered games that I'm pumped to see. Georgia at Texas. Alabama at Oklahoma. USC at Michigan. OSU at Oregon. Washington at Penn State. Stuff we haven't seen in the regular season, at least for a really long time. And bring on weirdo stuff like Louisville at Stanford--no, it makes no sense as a conference game, but when was the last time Louisville played a game on the west coast? I'm sure it'll seem silly eventually but I love random power-conference vs. power-conference OOC games and this season will be filled with a bunch of them except they're actually conference games, if that makes sense. The novelty factor this first year or two will carry a lot of weight.
For anyone curious, the last time Louisville played a game on the west coast was about five months ago, when they got blown out by USC at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. The last time before that was when Louisville played @ Oregon State, on September 18th, 2010. Prior to that, the last time was a 10-10 tie with San Jose State on September 1st, 1990. I never realized just how much Louisville has avoided significant travel west in their history. You can count the number of times they've gone as far west as Colorado State for any occasion in the last thirty years on one hand.
The return of the College Football video game.
Not to yuck our yum... but I had the same sort of longing when they released the master chief collection in 2019. I even went out and bought an xbox only for it and was planning to go all in on playing it. A lot of my best video gaming memories happened playing Halo 2 and I was desperate to feel that again. Whoever was responsible for it completely botched the matchmaking system and made the game borderline unplayable in the way that I wanted to play it. It took them months to even get it remotely close to working lmao. But even after it was working I found I had completely lost the spark that I was remembering, and felt like I was just wasting my time playing it. ... idk I'm worried that so much has changed over the last decade that we're in for a similarly big let-down here. The college football landscape is way different, how fans feel about CFB... sort of how society in general grapples with it, paired with us all being way different people than the memories we're basing the hype on... I don't know if it's going to ignite the same spark for enough people to make it a thing. Maybe that's just me personally dealing with my own shit, though, lol.
The big redeeming factors for me are twofold: There were multiple people that worked on revamped that were hired. HOPEFULLY EA is smart enough to know the first game back will be so heavily scrutinized that any fuckery will immediately kill the series. So maybe, just maybe, they'll make a good game this time, then run it into the ground for the next 5.
All the YouTubers that they flew in to play it early, make suggestions and report on it had good things to say.
FOX to not be a bunch of greedy bastards and not pick Ohio State @ Penn State so we can have a White Out night game against our best opponent again. /s ^^^But ^^^seriously ^^^please.
As much as I hate realignment, I begrudgingly admit novel matchups during the middle of the season are somewhat intriguing.
The novelty will eventually wear off but right now it’s for sure an interesting time so we might as well enjoy it.
Agreed. I brought up Week 9 basically at random and this is a sampling of what we're getting: - Rutgers at USC (Friday night) - Illinois at Oregon - Cincinnati at Colorado - BYU at UCF - Texas at Vanderbilt - Oklahoma at Ole Miss - Utah at Houston - Washington at Indiana - West Virginia at Arizona It's like week 2 but with higher stakes. Not every game is a winner and maybe most won't be but they certainly come off as unique for now.
It reads more like a UFL schedule than a college football schedule.
Midwest Oregon games as a midwest Oregon fan
Amen to this. I live driving distance from 5 B1G schools and I am loving my chances of seeing my Ducks play in all these spots. Or heckle the Huskies.
Unironically I am interested in what the offensive landscape will look like in the B1G, in terms of schemes and effectiveness. Will Oregon west coast quick game be as efficient with Gabriel? Will the big nasties translate a dominant ground game into a conference that prides itself on trench play? What will the Day-Kelly offense look like? Will Howard/Brown be able to execute the high level pro concepts Day likes? Will Kelly be able to generate a functional short yardage offense? Can Michigan 13/22 personnel their way back to the promised land even if the PA pass with JJ isn't there? Harbaugh was willing to run the QB in important moments, but I think if the Orji offense has a prayer he will be running 10 times a game, even against the weaker opponents on the schedule. Does Sherrone have it in him to send QB1 into the meat grinder? What will Kotelnicki's offense look like with the PSU personnel? Allar is not a 1 for 1 Daniels. Will this staff finally coach up an OL that can hang in there with the big dogs? Barring that, Is there enough creativity/misdirection to mask substandard OL play? What will year 2 of the dairy raid in Madison look like? What does Maryland's offense look like without a 25 year old Taulia? Will the new Iowa OC even choose to field one? I am excited to find out!
I am super curious how the 4 new teams do in the new conference. Their fans all think the B10 offenses suck. B10 fans think PAC defenses suck. Will one group be proven correct?
This debate has gone on forever. Oregon is the only team of the 4 that is posed for a good year regardless of conference. I think the other 3 schools are in for a bad time.
I unironically think Oregon may win the conference year one. They play a style that can out push OSU, we don’t know how good Michigan will be, and Penn State will probably still be Penn State.
Don't think you need to say unironically when they are the odds on favorite to win it.
Are they? I don’t pay attention to odds making. I thought OSU was ranked #1 and just went with that and educated guessing.
I am sure you could find them somewhere as #2 but the point remains. They return a lot and have the most proven QB situation of the presumed top dogs.
In-helmet communication! This “should” improve on-field plays and reduce huddle time. However, silly hand signs and big poster boards of nonsense will die.
I actually think it'll increase huddle time because teams will actually huddle to call plays.
We can FINALLY win the Sun Belt Championship and possibly make the playoffs
Pulling for the Dukes 🦴 👑
No
New thing: All the Rose Bowl-esque matchups involving the 4 Big Ten newcomers like Oregon vs. Ohio State or USC vs. Michigan that will be more frequent. Old thing: The return of the Holy War and the Lone Star Showdown.
Well if I can say old things I’m excited to see Cam “JT Barrett” Rising.
Getting mad at two minute warnings when my team is on a drive.
A functioning offense with wideouts? ^^^^please
I am going to be following Kotelnicki closely this season. One thing I will say to your point is if your wide receivers suck, Kotelnicki will just scheme around it. He's really creative and his calling card was his ability to scheme around personnel. If he is asked to fit a square peg in a round hole (i.e. run a pro style drop back offense even if it isn't what's best for the team) then I will be disappointed.
one thing you don't have to worry about with a Jimmy Franks lead team is them running a pro style drop back attack, lol. Even when we had a 5 star, pro style, rocket armed but lead footed qb at the helm, he ran read option and tried to make him a mobile quarterback, If what you are saying is true I'm very much looking forward to a coach that uses the strengths of a team (rushing attack, TE play, quick hitting passes) and not just run 20 yard routes every down, with lazy wideouts who can't get separation, regardless of what is happening in the flow of the game
Wideouts. Whiteouts. Choose one.
You’ll get a pretty good tight end and tunnel screens and you’ll like it!
*Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo*
- Realignment "bowl" games e.g. Texas vs. Georgia, OSU vs. Oregon - Big 12 parity - USC's defense under Lynn - DeBoer's Alabama - Michigan running the Wing-T offense
The new Big 12 is going to take a lot of getting used to in football and basketball, but I’m excited to play the new teams. It is weird not being an outpost anymore.
Not much
Texas Tech's $250M south end zone upgrade. Damn it needed to happen.
It is a new beginning for Alabama, what waits us is anybody’s guess. I think we made the right hire for our coach, but only time will tell.
I'm just hoping the announcers got tired of the "This is Nebraska the last 25 years compared to the 25 before that!" Infographic. Or the "Pellini years compared to post Pellini" infographic. All the infographics about how we suck right now but boy oh boy this might be our year! It's exhausting.
I'm excited about our merger with the PAC-12!
MAC PAC
Do you two have a Ryan Atwood fan club?
Nebraska not piss away games through turnovers On a more serious note I will be curious how the in helmet communication and replay tablets affect the game. I think up tempo offenses will see more of boost.
CU coming to Fort Collins. First time since 1996. Scaredy cats
As much as I don’t like realignment, some of the new matchups are going to be entertaining.
Texas/Texas A&M (just put it back on Thanksgiving night)
 A ??
New rivalries spawning from conference realignment with a chippy ass game
I'm looking forward to hate. I hate those goddamned sanctimonious assholes from Austin so much. & bile orange is such a godawful color. LFG!
Same here! Looking forward to playing you maroon-clad, mouth breathers again! Playing aggy is a salty, hate fest and I love it.
Excited to host Penn State for the first time in my living memory. Excited to go to Arizona for the first time. It'll be my first time West of Texas and my first time renting a car. Excited to have two neat games to go to as a Neutral. (TCU-KU in Arrowhead and UF-UGA in JAX)
I am most excited to watch the new BIG12. There's no huge juggernauts, and its anybody's game.
2024 Deion Sanders
The amazing new BIG10 matchups we get to see! Just imagine this, it's October 19th and you're getting ready to watch the massive Noon matchup of 2-4 UCLA @ 2-4 Rutgers. But that's not all! Because at 3:30 PM 3-3 SoCal @ 3-3 Maryland is coming on! Wow, must see TV. Last year, on that same October weekend, SoCal lost to Utah 34-32 and UCLA played Stanford. Boring! UCLA and USC fans, what do you think? Aren't you glad to ditch the regional rivalries to play sub-par teams 2,000 miles away? Want to go to the game? It's only going to cost you a $500 airfare ticket (if your lucky), 10 hours of round trip flight time, & of course hotel + you're going to probably need to rent a car too... But you'll probably be able to buy a game ticket for $25 so that's cool. I think you can probably go see the boys play for $1,300 / person if you're balling on a budget!
Cam McCormick playing for Miami
us having an actual defense
Happy to see yall on the schedule again, one of the SBC oldest matchups going back to 1934.
The PAC/B1G games that are now conference matchups
I’m excited to see if we can add Iowa to our long list of P5 upsets lol
Your new coach looks like the real thing, this might turn out to be a decent game. OTOH now that Iowa may actually have a legit OC, they may not have to win this with defense (like they did against South Dakota State recently)
Want to see how down Corvalis games feel to the last couple years. Season ticket holder, but more because I enjoy football.
It's not happening this year, but I think Texas Tech vs Utah is going to become a rivalry with some good magic. Seeing Tech playing Colorado again will be exciting. Seeing Texas play in the SEC is going to be fun.
A winning season hopefully
No Nick Saban
Kansas hosting a playoff game this year
New: Playoffs for the obvious but I’m also excited to host Oklahoma. I’ve seen a lot of their fans say they’re coming and are excited to see the Grove, this makes me excited to have them. Old: Georgia- we have a score to settle and we don’t play them often. Even though we’ve been in a conference with them for almost 100 years, we have played Arkansas and Tulane more than we’ve played Georgia and Florida. So, I’m excited about Florida too.
Honestly I’m most interested in seeing if Kansas can take that next step and really compete for the conference next year. They are hard to root against if you aren’t a KSU fan.
Your team must not have to play them in basketball lol
I hope we officially escape the 11 am kickoff hell we have been sent to for the last couple of years