Today we begin our preview of the 2024 college football season. As I have previously indicated, going forward I will be discussing all college sports as if we were still using the traditional conferences from my youth. I will generally use the term "Classic" to make this clear -- for example, "Georgia is favored to win the Classic SEC." Presumably there will be times where I have to refer to the current conference arrangements, and we will hope that context will make such references clear.
Anyway, today we begin with the Classic Independents. Because there are so many of these, I won't list them all. But here are the ones in which I have an interest. The number next to each team shows its current ranking on CBS Sports (teams in the top 20 are in bold):
7. Penn St.
8. Notre Dame
13. Florida St.
16. Miami (Fla.)
26. Louisville
29. Virginia Tech
31. W. Virginia
35. Memphis St.
45. Rutgers
53. Georgia Tech
59. Boston Coll.
62. Tulane
68. Syracuse
73. Cincinnati
77. Pittsburgh
96. Army
109. Navy
What's most interesting to me about this list is that it looks almost exactly what I would have expected from a ranking of independents in the 1980's -- with the lone exception of Louisville, who is ranked relatively high.
Also, Notre Dame will play Louisville, Georgia Tech, Navy, Florida St., and Army this season. I will treat each of those as matchups between Classic Independents.
As for Penn State, they will play a lot of games against Big 10 and Pac 10 schools, but they open the season with West Virginia and close with Maryland -- two old rivalries from the 1980s.
Florida State will play Georgia Tech, Boston College, Memphis St., Notre Dame -- and, of course, they will meet Miami (Fla.) on October 26. So a strong independent schedule for the Noles.
As for the Canes, in addition to their game with FSU, they will play Louisville, Georgia Tech, and Syracuse -- all Classic Independent matchups. They also open at Florida -- only the third meeting with between Miami and Florida since 2004, and the first since 2019.
The Army/Navy game will take place at Commanders Field in Landover, Md. on December 14, 2024. Navy leads the all-time series with a record of 62-55-7, but Army has won six of the last eight meetings, and the last two in a row. No one loves the military like Washington, D.C., and the locals will be thrilled to see the Army/Navy game here for the first time since 2011. I just checked online and two tickets next to each other in the upper deck will cost you almost $1,400.
Hooray for football!!!
U of L has acquired Pitt's status.
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