Oh boy…this might be one of our biggest shake ups yet.
In this weeks College Football Top 25, Alabama stays #1. Beyond that, almost everything has shifted. Most notable is Cincinnati entering out Top 4 – this is the first G5 team we’ve had in our Top 4 this season and the first ever in the history of this poll.
Notre Dame jumps up to #2 in our poll after upsetting a DJ Uiagalelei led Clemson. Trevor Lawrence will be back soon, but it’s an outright lie to say the QB change was the only thing that lost them this game. The Tigers have dropped to #5.
Florida kicked Georgia down all the way to #15 with their upset, as Texas A&M, BYU and Indiana continue creeping up the Top 10 hoping no one notices. Check out our full poll below and let us know your thoughts in our forums, HERE.
Did the SEC get exposed this week, or did they showcase their top to bottom strength? Regardless, we now have 4 SEC teams in our Top 10, the most of any conference – but, only 1 other in the 25! Oklahoma rejoined us this week as well as new entrants BC, Tulsa and NC State. Will any of these newcomers stick around? Let us know in the replies, forums and on Twitter @Sidelines_SN!
Note: We are currently only ranking teams set to play the following weekend. Thus, we are not yet including the Big Ten, Pac 12, MWC or MAC.
Top 25
1
Clemson (16)
448
2
Alabama (1)
428
3
Georgia (1)
419
4
Notre Dame
393
5
Oklahoma State
358
6
Cincinnati
355
7
North Carolina
351
8
BYU
303
9
Florida
277
10
Texas A&M
265
11
Miami (FL)
251
12
SMU
250
13
Louisiana
203
14
Tennessee
198
15
Kansas State
194
16
Iowa State
192
17
Auburn
181
18
Virginia Tech
140
19
Marshall
138
20
Coastal Carolina
79
21
UCF
70
22
NC State
65
23
Oklahoma
55
24
Tulsa
50
25
Boston College
45
Others Receiving Votes:
West Virginia
28
UAB
21
Army
20
Texas
13
LSU
10
TCU
10
Pittsburgh
9
Liberty
7
San Diego State
7
Memphis
4
Houston
4
Iowa
2
Kentucky
2
Arkansas
2
MIssouri
2
Appalachian State
1
Be sure to let us know what you think in the Forums and on Twitter @Sidelines_SN!!!
After a wild first full week of college football, we have our Week 2 Top 25 poll ready. The Big 12 went winless against the Sun Belt, UNC woke up in the fourth quarter, and FSU got stung. Louisiana’s upset performance was enough to earn them a first place vote by one of our writers.
This poll is comprised of the votes of SidelinesSports.Net writers. Note: We are now only rankings teams that currently intend to play this season.
The College Football Playoff isn’t even a decade old and it already has to adjust for a global pandemic. To be fair, the model itself doesn’t appear to be changing much – four teams will still compete in a tournament, with seeding set by the College Football Playoff committee. The semifinals will be at great locations this year; the historic Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. As far as the rankings, the first will come out Tuesday, November 17. The Playoff Selection show itself will be Sunday, December 20. That leaves one question – who will be in?
1. Clemson
We’re highly expecting yet another undefeated regular season for Clemson. Their shortened schedule (with the Citadel being their only true out of conference game) leaves very few threats. Notre Dame is the only opponent that really jumps out as a test for Clemson, and while this will be a talented Notre Dame squad behind Ian Book’s leadership, it simply won’t be enough to cut it. The usual suspects like Pitt and Syracuse could provide a scare, but Trevor Lawrence’s talent and a great supporting cast (eyes on Etienne for best Running Back in college) mean they will waltz to another College Football Playoff appearance, where they’ll beat Alabama in yet another matchup but lose the title game to our next team.
2. Georgia
Of all four teams we have projected to make the playoff, Georgia returns the most overall production (65%) with 10 starters. Plus, Jamie Newman is not only a Heisman candidate but a proven baller with experience carrying a roster further than it should’ve gone. So, what happens when he is on an already good roster? We predict a national championship. Georgia has been criticized for an unimaginative offense, but we believe bringing in Todd Monken as OC will help them finally piece together both sides of the ball, as LSU did last year on their undefeated championship run. Georgia doesn’t exactly have an easy schedule, and we predict them dropping 1 in the regular season to Alabama, but we think they’ll win the SEC title game and every game afterward.
3. Oklahoma
Seems like OU is always the fourth seed, doesn’t it? We don’t predict that changing this season. Spencer Rattler has all the makings of yet another elite OU QB, and he already has some experience in Lincoln Riley’s system. The loss of Kennedy Brooks (who announced he’s opting out) certainly hurts the diversity of OU’s offense, but Jeremiah Hall can help open up the offense. Oklahoma State is the biggest threat on OU’s schedule and we predict them or Iowa State gets a win over the Sooners this season, but we ultimately expect Riley’s coaching, an elite QB in Rattler and a top of the league passing game to bring the Sooners to another College Football Playoff appearance (but yet another semifinal loss).
4. Alabama
This will be an interesting year for Alabama. We just hit the first 2 year title drought for the Crimson Tide since 2013-2014. They’re QB situation is interesting, with Mac Jones coming back as the projected starter but high school phenom Bryce Young waiting in the wing. The Tide’s defense looks airtight, so most questions are on the offensive side of the ball, and Najee Harris and DeVonta Smith are pretty powerful answers. We think the Crimson Tide will go undefeated in the regular season but lose the SEC title game to Georgia. This sets them up for a rematch with Clemson, and a strategic Dabo will exploit their few weaknesses (likely via Etienne) to scrape past them.
Agree? Disagree? Let us know on Twitter @Sidelines_SN, and bookmark SidelinesSports.Net on your browser (Ctrl+D on most browsers)!
Anyone familiar with Alabama football knows that although their athletics nickname is the “Crimson Tide,” their mascot is an elephant. There’s no clear connection between crimson and elephants, nor the “Roll Tide” shout, so how did this come to be?
History
The story starts with Wallace Wade, legendary Alabama coach (as well as a legendary Duke coach, and the namesake of their football stadium). Wade’s 1930 Alabama team was like many others he had coached; menacing and tough. They were known for their strength and blocking abilities.
Following a hard-fought victory over Ole Miss, Everett Strupper of the Atlanta Journal used very imaginative language to describe the sheer power of the Alabama football team:
“Coach Wade started his second team that was plenty big and they went right to their knitting scoring a touchdown in the first quarter against one of the best fighting small lines that I have seen. For Ole Miss was truly battling the big boys for every inch of ground.
At the end of the quarter, the earth started to tremble, there was a distant rumble that continued to grow. Some excited fan in the stands bellowed, ‘Hold your horses, the elephants are coming,’ and out stamped this Alabama varsity.
It was the first time that I had seen it and the size of the entire eleven nearly knocked me cold, men that I had seen play last year looking like they had nearly doubled in size.”
“Elephants” wasn’t a team nickname at the time, but it soon became one. Sports writers would refer to the Alabama linemen as the “Red Elephants.” That 1930 team would go on to have an undefeated season, one of Alabama’s claimed national championships.
Alabama informally accepted the moniker. In the 1940’s the University actually kept a live elephant. This elephant would carry the homecoming queen every year. When keeping a live elephant became too expensive, Alabama began renting elephants for homecoming weekend.
The first use of an elephant mascot suit was in 1960, when student Melford Espey Jr. began wearing elephant costume head to games. Espey would go on to become an administrator at the University of Alabama, and Coach Bear Bryant would ask him to don the elephant head for games.
In 1979, Alabama’s homecoming committee decided they wanted an official mascot suit. They met with Coach Bryant, who approved the idea, and then purchased the first Big Al suit from Disney with athletic department funds. Big Al debuted at the 1980 Sugar Bowl, in which Alabama defeated Arkansas. The actual name “Big Al’ came from a student vote. Al Brown was a popular DJ on campus at the time, and thus was voted in.
Since his formal adoption, Big Al has appeared in many forms as an alternate logo for Alabama. Many incarnations of this are shown throughout this article, with the most recent form below and at the start of this article:
While the basketball world is in the depths of March Madness, College Football fans are gearing up for spring games; the slight whiff of fall ball that gets us through the off season (besides of course, frequent and rampant speculation).
Here’s our list of must-watch spring games with details.
Thoughts on the games? Think we should have included others? Let us know in the comments below.
