College Football's Grand Finale

College Football's wrapping up tonight with what should be a doozy!

Jan 08, 2024

The Film Room

Reviewing The Last Batch of Bowl Games & Picks

I said I couldn’t believe I was taking Auburn by a Touchdown and they proved why. They got stomped by Maryland 31-13. However, my other pick in the LSU/Wisconsin game, went over the total before the end of the 3rd Quarter for an easy win. 1-1 on the week and 5-5 in the Bowl Szn. If you couldn’t access the Pop-Tarts post from last week, try this link.

In the prior 9 years of the College Football Playoffs, only 5 out of the 18 Round 1 Games ended as 1-score games. 1st round games that aren’t close weren’t as fun to watch and, for me, made the future 12-team playoff sound even worse. But this year and last year’s games all were within 1 score and the losing teams typically had the ball with a chance to tie or win. NIL and transfer portal might have created more parity in college football after all!

Both of the games last weekend felt very different and out of reach at times, but both ended up coming down to the wire.

Michigan sacked Alabama 5 times in the first half and had effectively shut down the Crimson Tide offense. A muffed punt by the Michigan special teams gave Alabama a short field and their lone TD of the 1st half. Michigan had more special teams errors that almost cost them the game. A bad snap on an extra point, a missed field goal that never had a chance, and then another muffed punt late in the game almost saw Alabama recover said punt in the endzone to win. That being said, a late Michigan Touchdown forced overtime and the Wolverines scored in 2 plays on their first overtime possession and proceeded to stonewall Alabama to take home the victory and advance to the National Championship.

We knew Texas vs Washington would be more of an offensive showcase than the first game. It felt like Washington dominated most of the game with lots of effective downfield plays and enough defense to keep Texas at bay. A tough 1st Half for Texas QB Quinn Ewers, who had a much better 2nd Half to make it a game. Washington should’ve iced this one by running out the clock, but on their 2nd to last drive they continued to throw the ball and continued to stop the clock. And then some poorly timed injury luck stopped the clock with 50 seconds left (instead of about 20). Texas then got the ball back and actually drove down the field and had a couple shots at a touchdown in the last 15 seconds but weren’t able to pull it out. And below is a pretty funny image of Freshman QB Arch Manning surrounded by members of the media while starting QB Quinn Ewers looks over.

Here’s some quick thoughts on the other big bowl games and NY6:

Cotton Bowl was honestly pretty boring, but a strong 4th Quarter was good for Mizzou and they were able to get a big win for the program over Ohio State
Ole Miss looked pretty dominate over Penn State in the Peach Bowl, further concerns over Penn State’s offense
Tennessee’s QB of the future, Nico Iomavea, balled out against one of the best defenses in college football, Iowa. He ran for 3 and threw for 1 TDs - a strong start to the Nico era in Knoxville
The Orange Bowl was ugly. Florida State basically had 3 original starters actually play this game. They showed up but basically boycotted it and they should’ve. Kept out of the playoff, shouldn’t risk getting hurt. They showed up, got their check, and got out. Georgia beat them 63-3
- Georgia HC Kirby Smart made some comments for the NCAA to hear about needed to fix bowl games because this will likely only get worse as teams get left out of the 12-team playoff

The Warm Up

Some Content to get the blood flowing

For any college basketball fans, a college football fan took the ‘One Shining Moment’ video that is created at the end of March Madness and made one for Bowl Season. Check it out here.

Cheez-It Citrus Bowl Hot Tub is up for auction on eBay. It’s $2,350 at the time of me writing this but that certainly feels worth it. Look out much fun the victorious Tennessee Volunteers players had enjoyed a nice hot tub after the game. Auction ends Monday 1/8 at 6:30PM - get it while you can!

Peep the final score announcement in the bottom left on this one.

The Scouting Report

Story lines to watch in the Final Game of the College Football Season

The College Football Playoff National Championship is tonight! Live from NRG Stadium in Houston, TX - kicking off at 6:30PM CST. #1 Michigan comes in as a 4.5 point favorite over #2 Washington, and this one sets up to be an interesting matchup because of the drastically different styles of play from the two teams. Michigan loves to control the game by running the ball and a tough defense. Washington, on the other hand, likes to move pretty quick on offense and spread the ball around in the air. Their powerful offense leaves their defense on the field a lot which typically is the reason for their high scoring games. Washington had a lot of close games down the stretch and have been forced to find different ways to win - which they did every time.

Washington is led by Heisman runner-up Michael Penix Jr. who threw for 430 yards and 2TDs to his talented committee of wide receivers against Texas in their Semi-Final game. Expect these receivers to all get plenty of catches, I would just expect less explosive downfield passes than last week. Dillon Johnson is Washington’s running back who has been battling injuries during the 2nd half of the season and was forced out of the Semi-Final game but he is expected to play. You could hear him in pain on the broadcast so not sure how healthy he is heading into tonight, he is very important to this team though. He stepped up late in the season and ran hard to carry the Huskies to some wins in tight games. The Husky defense gets a bad rap for their pass defense, but I think this is due to their large amount of time spent on the field. I expect them to put more focus on shutting down the run Michigan’s receivers aren’t anything special and the Husky secondary should be able to contain them.

Michigan comes into every game expecting to run the ball effectively, and they should be able to here with RB Blake Corum running behind his strong offensive line. Texas ran the ball for about 6.5 yards per carry against Washington last week, which is pretty dominate, but Texas decided to throw the ball almost twice as much as they ran it - might need to talk to Sark about that one. So expect Michigan to run the ball until Washington proves that they can stop the Wolverines. Michigan’s defense is their best unit as they’ve allowed only 10 points a game to opponents through out the season. The main concern here is that the Michigan defense hasn’t faced a group of Wide Receivers as talented as Washington’s. Michigan did face the #1 college receiver in Marvin Harrison Jr. and he had a great game with 118 yards and a TD and they really only needed to focus on Marvin, but Washington has at least 2 receivers that will be heading to the NFL next year so it could get ugly if they can’t contain them.

There’s also a fun metric that has held true for the past 10 years, and it could be proven wrong this year, called the Blue Chip Ratio. The Blue Chip Ratio measures the % of 4 and 5-star (high school and junior college) recruits that make up a school’s roster. Since it’s inception in 2013, no team with lower than a 52% Blue Chip Ratio has won the National Championship. This ratio is just a good way to show successive, strong recruiting classes that a school has. Michigan is barely in the threshold this year sitting around 55% Blue Chips, but Washington sits outside of this mark - meaning they could break the mold of the Blue Chip Ratio should they win tonight.

Herbie’s Hunch: This one is really hard to pick, but give me Washington. I could argue this one either way, but I want Washington to win - just seems more fun. Hopefully, the Huskies can get an early lead and play enough defense to keep Michigan at bay.

Gambling Picks

My picks and leans for the week

If I had to take something in this game it would probably be the Over at 56.5 - that way you can just root for points and enjoy the game!
If you followed on Twitter I gave out 2 winners on the Oregon Game last week - don’t miss out! (Oregon First Half -10.5 and Team Total over 44.5)
If I come up with a pick on another game, I’ll post those to Twitter. Give me a follow! @HerbiesHuddle

Readyyyyyyyy Break

Some Michigan players giving Ben Herbstreit, Kirk Herbstreit’s dog, some love as Ben has been traveling with Kirk a lot of this season and has a cult like following.

Thanks for reading Herbie’s Huddle! If you liked this post, feel free to share with a buddy!

Gambling can be addictive. Please play responsibly. Gambling may be illegal in your jurisdiction. Please check your local laws before Gambling. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-522-4700

Herbie's Huddle

Discussion about this post