Tom Fornelli on X: "Teams without a win against an FBS team with a winning record during 2025 regular season Air Force Appalachian State Arkansas Army Auburn Boston College Buffalo Central Michigan Charlotte Coastal Carolina Eastern Michigan Florida Atlantic Georgia State Kent State Liberty" / X https://share.google/5gj7QqS2tvlzGPu9q
Take into consideration that many of the "top" SEC schools play fewer than three currently ranked in the top 25, and those that do include Tennessee and Missouri on their schedule. Also that many SEC schools play very weak non-conference schedules with 4 easy wins. Also that many of the SEC teams played at least 6 games against teams that finished with losing records and 7 in some cases. Some of those wins came against FCS schools.
It wasn't until the last few years that the top tier SEC schools finally started to schedule ONE real OOC opponent. I'm surprised the NCAA allowed them to host four cupcakes until recently.
They always have a few good teams at the top but the Big-12 is far more balanced from top to bottom.
They will start a 9 game conference schedule next year I believe.
They aren't fake, but the Power Index of CFB is skewed. Politics will prevent my theory, but I think it is the best way for CFB to go forward if the NCAA and "Committee" want any semblance of control in the NIL Era.
I truthfully don't view CFB as having a true Power4. It is 2 Conferences that matter.
My prevailing opinion and solution is there should be a 2 Week Bracket to start every season.
1 team from each of the Power 4.
Week 1 - Standard Final 4, 1vs4, 2vs3 or however the schools want to BID (pay) each other to configure it.
Week 2 - Winners play Winners, Losers play Losers automatically
The 0-2 Team will end up with a higher Strength of Opponent heading into a Week 3 Cupcake, then into Conference play where they can decide their own fate from there.
Then and only then, can we decide if a 1 or 2 loss team truly belongs in the CFB vs a 3 loss team that lost to "Ohio State and Texas" in Week 1 and 2, but you can evaluate those games as Close Games, Blowouts, how it really looked in a diversified manner. 2 losses in the OOC + 1 loss in Conference shouldn't be a disqualifier. It should be a Qualifier.
All we see currently are "some" teams taking a marquee risk OOC, but not all nor enough.
I say this if the NCAA and CFP want to remain relevant. This is how they should do it. Otherwise they are just letting all the inmates run the asylum and cook up who gets to make the CFP and distribute the money earned.
This proposal also helps to make a Conference Championship game more Balanced.
Texas Tech vs BYU was a close game for most of it, then BYU fell apart.
The scoreboard will look terrible, but BYU is definitely better or on par at least with some of the teams that are proposed to be "In". If they had a win in a Final 4 OOC game then they would be a Lock. If they had 2 losses, the losses could likely be to 1 or 2 teams in the CFP bid conversation. So that would make more sense to Eliminate them than saying arbitrarily they are not better than any other 1 or 2 loss team.
No cupcakes allowed for the SEC with 2 weeks to go in the season.
Just showcase what the reality is across all the conferences and get a better idea of who truly belongs in the CFP.
It is different than Basketball in the sense that teams are too powerful and there is less parity.
"Any Given Saturday" is not a phrase for a reason.
Independent Teams can buy their way into a bracket.
I wouldn't mind seeing "Ohio State, Georgia, Notre Dame, BYU" in a "Final 4" bracket to start the season.
I wouldn't mind seeing "Iowa, Ole Miss, Miami, Arizona" in a bracket either.
The Commish's of all the 4 Conferences need to get together and decide who gets into what "pod" of 4.
It ensures 2 legitimate games for everyone, higher ratings for the money peoples, and provides a barometer on how to more fairly judge the actual Power Index of a Team and Conference at the same time.
Obviously an Independent would be at a disadvantage here and rightfully so. They can choose to opt out and end up forced to schedule Harder overall or they can "buy in" to a "Pod".
AKA, Notre Dame can avoid this and just schedule as they do, but probably need to schedule 1 more hard game. Or they can pay to play and get into a Premium Pod.
Otherwise it is just too simple to say the SEC and Big10 are "20 out of the Top 25" innately --- while fluffing up fake ranks for TV Ratings purposes --- Because they truly are and I admit that the balance is too skewed to have "rankings" that matter throughout the year in this current way the sport is played.
I have spoken.
ONWARD AND UP
BEARDOWN
Footnote:
Limit it to 8 Pods, 32 Teams to represent the Power 4 - 8 Each or Notre Dame can buy out someone's slot - so as to incentivize all teams to want to be getting into those brackets instead of being bottom feeders.
If a team is undefeated and didn't participate in a Pod, then that would equal a qualitative metric like 1.5 Losses... aka the "frauds" that sneak up standings on Weak Schedules every year.
There is no perfect solution, but this at least also preserves some of the integrity of the game as "Bowl Games" are chalk full of Opt Outs now because everyone goes into the Portal to get Paid and they don't want to get hurt.
So seeing some of these matchups when they actually matter is a better product in my view vs seeing Arizona vs Oklahoma with all the Opt Outs they had a few years ago and even the Georgia vs Florida State fiasco where FSU basically protested playing because their QB Jordan Travis got hurt and they still went undefeated and got left out of the last Final 4 CFP.