Welcome to Doughty's Dump, your daily dump of college football and college basketball links, videos and other goodness. And if your time isn't valuable, follow me on Twitter and check out my podcast, High Motor.
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Playoff Rankings
Entering this season, 67 different teams had appeared in the College Football Playoff Rankings. Only three teams appeared in all 31 rankings (Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State) and only four teams had been ranked No. 1 (Alabama, Clemson, Mississippi State, and Georgia). The latter changed on Tuesday night when LSU earned their first-ever No. 1 spot in the first of six 2019 playoff rankings.
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Florida State
"According to three separate sources, Bob Stoops could become the next head coach of Florida State football in the near future," said an WTXL-TV report (without a byline) on Monday night.
This is the unstable middle ground of a coaching search: It wasn't reported by an unknown blog, nor was it reported by a prominent insider (i.e. Bruce Feldman, Dennis Dodd, etc.). It wasn't taken as gospel but still got enough attention to make the rounds, which led to Florida State athletics director David Coburn acknowledging Stoops is on their list.
"He’s on the list, and he’s certainly somebody we would consider," Coburn said on Tuesday. In that same article, the Tallahassee Democrat said, "FSU has made contact with Stoops about the opening and there is interest from his side, according to sources."
Amateur hour! Why on earth is Coburn commenting on that report? Why would he comment on any potential candidate?
"Just talked with Bob Stoops," Kirk Herbstreit tweeted on Tuesday morning. "Any reports that he’s a candidate for the FSU job are not accurate. Said “he’s not a candidate.”
"Spoke w/ Bob Stoops this morning," Sooner Scoop's Carey Murdock tweeted, also on Tuesday. "He tells me the rumors/reports of him being a candidate for the Florida State job opening are not accurate. Says he was at the new Hard Rock Casino all day yesterday and at a Dan Marino Foundation party last night. Not interviewing for FSU job."
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Peej Gets Paid
P.J. Fleck was one of several names mentioned by insiders as a potential candidate at Florida State. If the Seminoles are/were interested in Minnesota's third-year coach, the price went way up on Tuesday when the Gophers announced a seven-year extension that includes a fat buyout.
"Minnesota AD Mark Coyle said coach P.J. Fleck's new salary on seven-year extension is $4.6 million, which puts him among top 10 head coaches in Big Ten," Twin Cities' media man Brian Murphy tweeted after the news broke. "There is a $10 million buyout if he leaves early. Contract is guaranteed at 65 percent."
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Jay Bilas
ESPN college basketball analyst and frequent NCAA critic Jay Bilas was on the High Motor podcast this week to (briefly) tear down the NCAA's hypocrisy and push back against the narrative that one-and-done teams can't win national championships.
You can listen below (or on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, and everywhere else):
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National Title Odds
As the college basketball season tipped off on Tuesday, here are the updated national championship odds (from Odds Shark):
Michigan State: +650
Kentucky: +750
Duke: +1000
Memphis: +1000
Kansas: +1000
Virginia: +1400
North Carolina: +1400
Louisville: +1400
Click here for full odds, including New Mexico State's odds to cut down the nets in Atlanta in April.
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Big Dump
Lunardi's preseason Bracketology . . . Sports Illustrated ranked all 353 college basketball teams . . . Alabama-LSU has major implications for the Pac-12's playoff chances . . . Cincinnati AD Mike Bohn is reconsidering accepting the USC job . . . Big Ten bowl projections . . . Could Todd Graham be a name to watch at Arizona if the Wildcats fire Kevin Sumlin? . . . How to bet the LSU-Alabama (-6) game . . . Is Memphis the best Group of Five team?
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High Motor
If you liked the Jay Bilas episode of the High Motor podcast, here are other recent episodes:
