the pac 12 usually implodes and cannibalize each other's win record before making into the playoffs, but that might change after USC and UCLA goes to the big 10
the big 12 sometimes cannibalize each other's win record but the playoff's 4th slot sometimes goes to the big 12 championship...that would change once texas and OU goes to the SEC
the pac 12 and big 12 would still have their championship game for TV $$$ once they add more teams from lesser conferences after their main teams depart for other conferences
the big 10 'west' might become a stronger conference once USC and UCLA joins, and there might be a realignment for which big 10 'east' team becomes a 'west' team -- leaders and legends divisions, whatever you call it nowadays....half of the teams in the big 10 are basketball schools or they don't have the talent-base, recruiting efforts, or coaching staff to win at football outside of the main contenders
The ACC isn't strong at all and clemson dominates their schedule with those close wins because clemson plays down to their level of competition and their players get babied and indoctrinated with religion by their coaching staff to stay with their 'family' as super seniors playing against competition that is half their weight class instead of going to the NFL. The ACC has a weird conference boarder to begin with: you have those chippy upper east coast new england players where it's so windy/snowy/rainy that you have to run the ball mixed in with undersized doug flutie QB heroics against Florida speed and georgia bulky players that truck you in that southern heat and humidity -- and then you mix in those states in between who run the spread and care more about basketball in NC, virginia, kentucky etc to 'round off' the conference. Notre dame's traditional football rivalries don't fit into ACC's schedule even tho the rest of Notre Dame athletics already compete in the ACC schedule. notre dame can cherry pick their schedule to waltz into the playoffs when they usually face clemson, which is the team they would have faced in the ACC championship had their football team joined the ACC. The playoffs should reward conference championship wins over independent football schedules.
There are too many florida football schools to choose from nowadays for any of those florida teams to dominate recruiting, especially now when being a starter early influences bigger NIL deals: UF, FSU, Miami, UCF, USF, FIU, FAU, etc, plus a lot of florida talent want to play out of state to leave their violent areas of home. (Louisiana is somewhat similar to Florida in terms of violence as a reason for people to leave home and play for a different school except that there's mainly one school to play for in LSU and then La Tech, ULM, ULL, Grambling, Tulane, McNesse, etc) You can also probably say the same with the big 12, which is mostly comprised of texas schools with the longhorns and OU as the epicenter, and it's weird that texas and OU are leaving their own conference. Texas has too many schools for recruits to choose from when they used to default on just Texas Longhorns for that education, now it's TA&M, Houston, SMU, TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech, Rice, UTEP, etc. The number of choices in-state while having in-conference rivals and nearby states like OU and LSU poach texas players just deplete the talent pool to be less concentrated where the player roster on different teams in the same conference is about the same, the chances of winning or losing becomes a coinflip in the big 12, and you have to defeat the other team using play design schemes and concepts, like the NFL, but with a bigger margin for error with wacky college football fukkery. The millions given in NIL deals basically overshadows the thousands of dollars that corrupt boosters used to hand out to athletes in wendy's bags every week or as automotive gifts, and that levels the playing field (a bit) for certain schools to overtake other schools in recruiting because players are incentivized to become starters early at weaker programs for better NIL deals and use the transfer portal more often for playing time and camera exposure....but some just play for their home state, so georgia and LSU get most of their homegrown recruits to stay home without much of a divided in-state rivalry like auburn-alabama, miss st-ole miss, south carolina-clemson, duke-NC state-UNC, etc...the more north and west you go, the more schools get their talent recruited from other states.
California players get it the worst: because of expensive housing and artificial scarcity of not building affordable apartments or high-rises in certain neighborhoods (aka wage discrimination is how rich people keep out minorities from moving in), players often sleep in their cars at random parking lots while taking on a full course load and playing football....some of these players started youtube channels for those 'day in the life as a football player' videos to highlight how tough it is, and some got disqualified to play collegiate sports by the NCAA for accepting money inappropriately by using their status as a football player to get youtube money, and California courts are the first to pass NIL for players to receive money from their role as an athlete for every other state to follow. A lot of california talent stay in the pac 12 but play for a non-californian schools because they are usually priced out of affordable housing and amenities to have a good time in college without putting their family in debt for the slim chance of getting into the NFL to pay back everything, so that's why califorian schools have a slim depth chart and injuries to key players ruin the season with a weak finish. unless you are starting and are on scholarship, most of californian talent (unless you come from a rich family background [but why would you risk injury for fame and NFL money if you're already rich?...sports is like the traditional way athletically-gifted people get out of poverty if they are not necessarily that smart or had good schools to begin with]) flees out of state to play football where everything, including unexpected medical expenses, is cheaper. There is a pipeline of californian QBs into non-californian schools and playoff contenders: clemson, alabama, ohio state, ole miss, LSU, etc.
The SEC is the super conference, as everyone already stated, and I can't wait until there's a playoff expansion bracket with 8+ teams with matchups that aren't usually scheduled because of how lopsided the talent/recruiting/coaching is in certain regions/conferences over others. certain schools always make it to their conference championship game because of how light their competition is and certain conference championship games are devalued or are given 'consideration slots out of pity' in the playoff bracket because everyone in their conference is subpar compared to other football schedules...some football schools don't see real opponents until mid october or late november or until the conference championships for some of these non SEC teams...at least the BCS era is over when schools would shell out millions of dollars to play weaker opponents on purpose and hang 73+ on them to trick the computers towards ranking them higher because you can't compare apples to oranges with mere statistics when the level of competition is different
www.orlandosentinel.com
Mack Brown won the BCS at Texas but was too lenient and lost control of the locker room for what the players could and couldn't do...Spurrier won the Natty at Florida in the 90s but he was also too lenient when he lost control of the locker room...didn't urban meyer have the most players arrested while he was at florida?...age (or scandal) catches up to these coaches but Mack Brown is still coaching at UNC and Spurrier spent a decade at south carolina. Saban might have the energy to jump up and down on the sidelines but I don't think he has much control over the locker room with the youthful energy like he used to have running his football program the way he wants it exactly. Saban can coach but I don't know if bama players nowadays are afraid of Saban's wrath like the years before because of those mistakes committed at the tennessee game...Saban will most likely still coach at alabama given that he's a revered figure there but I think he's losing his recruiting edge a bit to NIL and there's probably not that much of a Saban replacement given that most of Saban's assistant coaches couldn't beat Saban at his own game.
i'm just saying a bunch of random obvious stuff, don't worry about it
