Football Friday 8/22/25

Notwithstanding the fact that no one on the planet awaited this moment with bated breath, the calendar now says it is time for Football Friday to return to this lonely Internet outpost.  Folks who have been on this journey for a while can put their minds in neutral for a moment while I explain to more recent followers here what is going to happen on most Friday’s from now until Super Bowl Weekend.  Friday’s rants will focus on college and professional football in a relatively structured way.

Each week, I will present a “Betting Bundle” – – usually between 3 and 6 games – – where I think the oddsmakers have the lines wrong.  In addition, I will usually include a Money Line Parlay or two just for fun,  The next week’s version of Football Friday will begin with a review of the outcomes of those imaginary wagers and parlays.

I will track the progress of my previously identified “Sleeper Team” in college football for 2025 – – Georgia Tech – – just because it does not take a huge effort to do so.  Next, I will track the progress of the Linfield University Wildcats football team.  The reason is that Linfield has had a winning record in Division III football every year since 1956.  Interestingly, in that lengthy span of winning seasons, the Wildcats only “squeaked by” with 5-4 records 4 times.  That is mirrored by the fact that Linfield has had 5 undefeated seasons in football during that streak.

With preliminaries out of the way, there will be college football commentary reviewing some games from the previous week and the games on tap for the week at hand.  As the season progresses, there are some imaginary events I like to pretend are real:

• I track the teams in contention for what I call the Brothel Defense Award.  It goes to the team that gives up the most points per game for the season.  It gets its name from the fact that it is easy to score in a brothel.
• At the end of the year, I imagine a tournament to determine on the field of play the worst team in college football; I call it the SHOE Tournament where “SHOE” is an acronym for “Steaming Heap Of Excrement”.  It is a simple 8-team field selected by a Committee of One – – me – – and the rules are straightforward.  As games are played, the loser must play on until there is only one ultimate loser left to make fun of.

After that tomfoolery, there will be NFL commentary, a review of previous games and a look at the games on tap for that weekend.

That summarizes the content.  There will be weeks when there is no Football Friday because some other life event or family involvement will make such an offering impossible.  But I will try to keep those interruptions to a minimum.

•            OK, long-term readers; it’s time to pay attention again …

Obviously, there is no “Betting Bundle” to review from last week since this is the start of a new season nor has Georgia Tech played a game that counts.  As a Division III school, Linfield has a 9-game regular season that will not begin until September 6^th so there is no tracking of progress toward another winning season there for a couple of weeks.  So that brings me to…

 

College Football Commentary:

 

            Two years ago, Northwestern fired head coach, Pat Fitzgerald, when hazing incidents surfaced at the school.  Fitzgerald denied any knowledge of whatever happened and filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the school seeking $130M in recompense.  That lawsuit was settled earlier this week; I have not seen a report as to the details of the settlement but there is one report of a statement by Fitzgerald after the fact:

“For the past two years, I have engaged in a process of extensive fact and expert discovery, which showed what I have known and said all along — that I had no knowledge of hazing ever occurring in the Northwestern football program, and that I never directed or encouraged hazing in any way.”

And …

“Through discovery, I learned that some hazing did occur in the football program at Northwestern. I am extremely disappointed that members of the team engaged in this behavior and that no one reported it to me, so that I could have alerted Northwestern’s athletic department and administrators, stopped the inappropriate behavior, and taken every necessary step to protect Northwestern’s student athletes.”

Pat Fitzgerald was a successful coach at Northwestern given that the school played in the Big-10 and is a “disadvantaged conference member”.  In his 17 years at the school, his teams won 10 or more games 3 times, which is spectacular, given the football environment in which that happened.

The NCAA put another coaching behavior matter to rest last week.  The “Michigan sign-stealing scandal” is no more and the NCAA made it clear that they believe that former Michigan coach, Jim Harbaugh, was not an innocent bystander in the matter.  Without going into details, Harbaugh cannot be hired to coach at the Division 1-A level of college football without the school producing a “show cause order” to the NCAA stating how and why such a hiring is necessary.  That “banishment” will be in force until 2039 when Jim Harbaugh will be 76 years old and unlikely to be seeking college football employment.

That punishment is mostly symbolic; what is not symbolic is that Michigan will be fined $20M as part of the punishment.  That will not bankrupt the Athletic Department, but $20M is indeed a lot of cheese.

Last year, the Big-12 had 5 teams that finished with conference records of 7-2.  If you believe the oddsmakers, the Big-12 will be wide open again this year.  In the futures wagering structure for this year, there are six teams with odds between +550 and +800 to win the conference championship – – and get an invite to the CFP.  Those six teams are:

1. Texas Tech (+550)
2. Utah (+550)
3. Arizona State (+600)
4. Kansas State (+600)
5. Baylor (+650)
6. TCU (+800)

The Big-12 may not have the best teams in the country, but the conference is one that needs to be followed just for the potential drama from week to week.

And speaking of the oddsmakers, there is one aspect of college football that I wish would be eliminated.  I refer here to the intentional scheduling of gross mismatches by almost all of the best teams in the country.  I know; there has been progress in recent years; some of the best teams do schedule out-of-conference opponents who are of a similar caliber.  Nevertheless, there are still too many games where the oddsmakers see the outcome as a 5 or even a 7 TD spread.  Those games are not interesting or entertaining.  When a mismatch occurs between two conference members, such a situation cannot be avoided; but the cupcake scheduling out of conference should be an embarrassment to the schools and to the folks who run college football.

Now before anyone starts to think that I am dissing college football as an entertainment vehicle, that is not the case.  However, a game where the halftime score is 45-3 is not entertaining and college football has produced lots of real entertainment so that blowout waste of time stands out like a sore thumb.  You want an example of an entertaining game from the past?

• October 2016 – – Texas Tech versus Oklahoma
• QBs were Patrick Mahomes versus Baker Mayfield
• Sooners won 66-59 with no overtimes
• Mayfield was 27 of 36 for 545 yards and 7 TDs with 0 INTs
• Mahomes was 52 of 88 for 734 yards and 5 TDs with 1 INT
• Total Offense in the game was 1708 yards – tackling was optional that day.

In the past, Penn State was called “Linebacker U” with justification.  It turned out some outstanding linebackers for the NFL.  Under the radar however is the fact that Penn State could also be labeled “Running Back U” – – and I don’t just mean Saquon Barkley.  Consider:

• KiJana Carter – – Overall #1 pick in the Draft but blew out a knee
• Franco Harris – – Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Larry Johnson – – Gained more than 1700 yards in one season
• Lenny Moore – – Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Miles Sanders – – Lead RB on a Super Bowl team

I seriously think that the current lead back at Penn State – – Nick Singleton – – could join that list; he is that good.

 

NCAA Games This Week:  Since there are only 5 games this week involving Division 1-AA teams, I will treat all of them as “Games of Interest”:

 

Iowa St. vs Kansas St. – 3 (50.5): Game is played in Dublin, Ireland.  That’s right; the first game out of the gate is a matchup in the highly unpredictable Big-12.The rivalry between these two rural schools is known as “Farmageddon” and the line opened at 3.5 points.  It then jumped briefly to 4 points and then scooted down to the current 3-point level.  I cannot pretend to know enough about these two teams to make a “Betting Bundle” selection, but I do notice that K-State is returning more starters on offense than I-State – – if that means anything to anybody.

Sam Houston St. at W. Kentucky – 10.5 (61):  This is a conference game between two teams that had winning records overall in 2024.  Sam Houston St was 10-3 overall and 4-1 in conference while W. Kentucky was 8-6 overall and 5-1 in conference.  Could be a good game to watch …

Fresno St. at Kansas – 12.5 (51):  This line has jumped all over the place.  It opened at 14.5 points; it went up to 15.5 points for a while and then started dropping like a rock.  It is at this level this morning, but momentum seems to be clearly with Fresno St. for the moment.

Stanford at Hawaii – 2.5 (50):  Stanford started out as a 2.5-point favorite and now Hawaii is the 2.5-point favorite.  I think Stanford is going to have a “difficult season” in 2025; Andrew Luck is their football GM and not their QB; were he their QB, they might be CFP contenders.  It is not easy for teams from the Lower-48 to schlep to Hawaii for a game; last year Hawaii was 4-3 at home and no one thought of Hawaii as a powerhouse.

Idaho St. at UNLV – 24.5 (64.5):  With Boise St. defecting from the Mountain West Conference, it looks as if UNLV could step in as the conference bully.  Idaho St. is a Division 1-AA team from the Big Sky Conference who finished 5-7 in 2024.

It is far too early in the season to make “Betting Bundle” picks but just to get things started here is a Money Line Parlay for this week:

• K-State @ minus-155
• Hawaii @ minus-130   $100 wager wins $191.07

 

NFL Commentary:

 

I am still working on NFL things like season predictions and coaches on hot seats and things of that ilk which will appear throughout next week – – and will be subject to post-mortem reviews next January/February.  However, there were a couple of news items from this week that deserve attention.

The Colts announced that Daniel Jones would be their starting QB – – not just for Week 1 but for the 2025 regular season.  The immediate reaction to that news from Colts’ head coach, Shane Steichen, was that Jones had won the QB competition in Training Camp with Anthony Richardson.  And indeed, that may be the case.  But I think it is interesting to take stock of those two QBs:

• Neither player has been anything more than “barely adequate” for all their time in the NFL.
• I think Anthony Richardson has the higher ceiling because he is an athletic freak.
• I think Daniel Jones has the higher floor because Richardson has a propensity to go into brain-lock and make disastrously bad plays
• If my analysis above is even close to correct, the real interpretation is that Shane Steichen did not have much of a choice to begin with.

The Colts enjoyed a long period of QB stability.  Peyton Manning played there for a long time, and he was succeeded by Andrew Luck.  However, Luck retired after 2018 and here are the Colts’ starting QBs since then:

• 2019 – – Jacoby Brisset (15 games)  Bryan Hoyer (1)
• 2020 – – Philip Rivers
• 2021 – – Carson Wentz
• 2022 – – Matt Ryan (12 games) Sam Ehlinger (3) Nick Foles (2)
• 2023 – – Gardner Minshew (13 games) Anthony Richardson (4)
• 2024 – – Anthony Richardson (11 games) Joe Flacco (6)
• 2025 – – The eighth straight year with a different starting QB in Week 1.

One good thing going for Daniel Jones as the Colts’ starter is that rookie tight end, Tyler Warren, should provide him with a security blanket as an outlet receiver and as a pass blocker.

There is a completely different vibe surrounding the Giants’ QB situation.  Russell Wilson has been named as the Game 1 starter but the fanbase there has put itself into a state of orgasmic delight with rookie Jaxson Dart.  His play in the preseason games has given Giant’s fans hope they have not had for a while now; the last time the Giants won the NFC East Division was in 2011.

• [Aside:  Let me pat myself on the back here for a moment.  Back in April as we approached the NFL Draft, I said this about Jaxson Dart, “Frankly, he might be the best pro QB from this year’s crop.”  Giants’ fans hope I am correct.]

Frankly, the entirety of the Giants’ QB situation in 2025 looks significantly better than it did last year.  Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston and Jaxson Dart are a more positive troika than last year’s ensemble of Daniel Jones, Drew Lock and Tommy DeVito.

Browns’ head coach, Kevin Stefanski, announced the resolution of part of the Browns’ QB “situation” this week.  Joe Flacco – – at age 40 – – will start the season under center.  In this week’s Exhibition Game against the Rams, Flacco will start and then be followed by Dillon Gabriel who will then give way to Shedeur Sanders.  That could mean that Kenny Pickett is the odd-man-out in Cleveland – – or it might mean that Pickett is going to be retained, and this game is to determine if Gabriel or Sanders is the rookie to hang onto a roster slot.  This one seems to remain up in the air.

I find it stunning that two of the best pass rushers in the NFL remain unsigned at this date AND that one of them – Trey Hendrickson – is being mentioned as a trade candidate by the Bengals.  The other player in a similar situation is Micah Parsons but there are extenuating circumstances in Dallas that tend to explain his situation.  Jerry Jones notoriously stretches out signing his star players and that has been the case ever since Emmitt Smith and through the years with the likes of Dez Bryant and Dak Prescott.  But Hendrickson has no such atmosphere about him; he is simply dealing with an organization that tosses nickels around like manhole covers.  The Bengals have a top shelf offense and a next-to-dysfunctional defense.  Hendrickson is the best player on that defense, which can hardly stand to get any worse if the Bengals hope to reap benefits from the offense they have assembled.  Yes, it takes the ability to score points to win football games.  It also helps a lot if you can stop the other guys from scoring once in a while.

The coaching roster in the AFC West is a formidable lineup; I cannot recall anything as imposing.  Consider:

• Broncos – – Sean Payton – – He has been to the Super Bowl as a coordinator and he has won a Super Bowl as a head coach.
• Chargers – – Jim Harbaugh – – He has been to the Super Bowl as a head coach and has won a collegiate National Championship via the CFP.
• Chiefs – – Andy Reid – – He has been to the Super Bowl 5 times and has won the Super Bowl 3 times.
• Raiders – – Pete Carroll – – He won a Super Bowl as a head coach and he won 2 Associated Press collegiate national championships.

The closest I can come to such a lineup would be the NFC East back in the 1980s when the coaches were Tom Landry (Cowboys), Bill Parcells (Giants) and Joe Gibbs (Skins), all of whom are now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Just to review, there is a Money Line Parlay inserted above:

• K-State @ minus-155
• Hawaii @ minus-130   $100 wager wins $191.07

Finally, these words from Tom Landry:

“Confidence comes from knowing what you’re doing. If you are prepared for something, you usually do it. If not, you usually fall flat on your face.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………