Itās the offseason, I like to refer to it as āList Seasonā or āHypothetical Seasonā because thatās what a lot of the college football sports talk shows or podcasts only have to talk about in early May.
My question is thisā¦
Letās say we make the CFP this season and we go 10-2 and get to host a game as a 5-8 seed in Neyland (remember 5 seeds will host a Group of 5 school like Liberty or Coastal Carolina or Memphis). Who do you want in Neyland Stadium in a Playoff atmosphere?
My top 3
1)Notre Dame
2) Ohio State
3) Clemson
It's boring, but in truth this year I would prefer whoever we would best match up against and most easily beat in order to advance. But ultimately -- which better gets at the spirit of your question -- I would prefer to play:
1) Michigan
2) Ohio State
3) Oregon
4) Runners up: ND, USC, Washington or Penn State
We just beat Clemson soundly in a NY6, and I would rather they fall off the face of the football-pertinent earth with that Orange Bowl as their lasting memory. I really feel like at this point we are a huge game for
them, but "nature is healing" (as I saw someone say today on this very subject) and that means Clemson returning to obscurity and Tennessee taking all of the best recruits in their state. So let it be.
I remember beating Ohio State and Michigan in New Years
Day bowl games, and those are really fun teams to beat. Two of my all-time favorite bowl games. I remember beating and also losing to ND at different times, and that has always been fun (all regular season games). The same with Penn State (two home wins and three bowl games to avenge). The old Penn State wins at Neyland were fabulous. Thank you for the stadium lighting, Joe P, you schmuck.
We have only played USC and Oregon a few times (and surprisingly have beaten neither, mostly as a function of our team being in a down cycle at the time the regular season games were played). So that bumps them up on my list. USC is bigger historically but I think Oregon has more cachet these days: I would prefer to f the Ducks.
You know, we came very close to playing an undefeated UCLA for the national championship in '98 instead of FSU (until UCLA was upset in their final game), and I have always wished that we had enjoyed the privilege of demolishing them. That has been a great series over the years, but I'm afraid they are second fiddle to USC and Oregon now, and maybe for a long time to come. So I'll give them a pass. Washington would be fun this year with them coming off making the championship game. So I'll let them stand as a runner up. We've never played, but we have a home and away two-game series lined up with them starting in '27 iirc. The battle of the two riverfront stadiums. But I don't know if that future series will survive the new expanded conference schedules on both sides.
The other national teams that come to mind for me are Oklahoma and Texas, and they're joining our league, so we'll play them, anyway. I'm looking forward to playing the Okies this year; I wish it were at home. Texas to me is so gross that as fun as it would be to beat them, I don't even want to play them because I don't even want to look at them. But it was fun to beat them in basketball in the tournament. And the basketball win the year before last with Heupel on the court at TBA pre-game to give the down horns sign was primo, too.
I really don't care about Miami or Florida State enough to want to play them, and we already have famous wins over them, anyway. I like UNC okay in football, but I would rather own the state of NC in recruiting more easily than to see them to rise to playoff caliber. If I am leaving someone out, I suppose it may be significant that they aren't even on my radar.
Looking at my list, I realize they are all Big 10 teams now (let's include ND as Big 10 adjacent). I didn't do that on purpose. That really is the SEC's big rival in football now. So let's have at them.