College football's sneakiest favorite, plus a quick history of CFB in Germany
Today in college football news, 'Expedition 33' is my favorite 'Final Fantasy' game ever. To be clear, it is not a 'Final Fantasy' game.
If you polled 100 college football fans on which FBS teams are expected to win each conference this year, I'm sure most could name the betting favorites in the ACC (Clemson), Big Ten (Ohio State), Mountain West (Boise State) and SEC (Texas), plus probably CUSA (Liberty) and the Sun Belt (JMU). Maybe the MAC too, where I assume Toledo will again be the favorite in 2099.
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But what about the Big 12? After Arizona State's playoff run, arguably Iowa State's best season ever and a half-year of Texas Tech transfer talk? Plus the usual Colorado rubbernecking? And maybe some assumptions that Oklahoma State or Utah will bounce back, just like TCU did last year?
The Big 12's favorite — according to BetMGM, FPI, SP+ and whatever else — is Kansas State, followed by a giant bottleneck. Oh right, Kansas State! Wait, the team that went 5-4 in conference last year, finishing eighth in a 16-team league?
At first glance, picking K-State kinda feels like a shrug. (A shrug by the computers? Yes, computers can decline to answer. Haven't you seen '2001'?) But for more, I asked Kellis Robinett, beat writer for the Wichita Eagle/Kansas City Star: Why do you think this under-the-radar team is so widely favored?
'Kansas State is always a safe bet in the Big 12, because the Wildcats have such a high floor. Chris Klieman has averaged nine wins over the past four seasons, and he won a conference title in 2022. Even though K-State lost some high-end talent during the offseason, it brings back big stars at quarterback (Avery Johnson), running back (Dylan Edwards), and wide receiver (Jayce Brown). Austin Romaine also seems poised for a breakout season on defense. Arizona State is the defending champ, and Texas Tech is the biggest spender in the league, but K-State has proven to be consistently better than both.'
Honestly, I'm nearly sold on K-State just by Klieman's consistency. Why not pick the team that has been most immune to the Big 12's feared Random Results Generator? (On top of that, picking a team that just finished in the middle is probably a safe bet. As has been frequently noted, last year's Big 12 preseason picks were nearly the opposite of the final standings. Avoid the bookends.)
Before we leave the Big 12, yes, I asked David Ubben the obligatory Colorado question (more on Deion Sanders in a sec): Wtf will this team be now that Heisman winner Travis Hunter and school-record-smashing QB Shedeur Sanders are gone?
'The short version is: better than people who aren't paying attention think. Colorado had two of the five most famous players in the country last year, who were also stellar talents. This year, they start with little to no star power, but Sanders and his staff have quietly improved the roster on both sides of the ball, which raises the floor for this team quite a bit. They won't be as explosive in the passing game without Sanders, Hunter and Jimmy Horn Jr., but they'll be good enough, and the running game should improve. I'm not sure I see a contender for the Big 12 title in this roster, but I do see a bowl team.'
More Big 12:
🙏 'Deion Sanders had his bladder removed in May after doctors discovered an aggressive cancerous tumor, the Colorado football coach announced at a Monday news conference.' He's back at work now. Many more details here.
🏈 Stewart Mandel on the Week 1 games that will actually impact the CFP. (As in, Texas-Ohio State might not end up meaning much if they both make it anyway.)
👀 That 15-year storyline about the Big Ten and SEC potentially dueling over North Carolina in realignment? Heating back up.
📰 News:
🌀 A tale of two QBs:
📺 Media days, where the big leagues wrapped up last week:
🎤 Take The Athletic's survey on everything you love and hate about CFB right now. (Like me, you should vote to replace the entire CFP with the one true format: a plus-one title game at the Rose Bowl, with its participants to be selected after bowl season.)
International college football has been a thing since almost literally the very beginning. (For one thing, the sport was so directly modeled on a version of English rugby, it's actually kinda hard to pinpoint when it actually became American football. For another, Montreal's McGill University was among the Canadian pioneers of the sport in the 1870s.)
Since then, American colleges have sent football teams to bowls in the Bahamas, Canada, Cuba and Japan; FBS neutral-siters in Australia and Ireland; and lower-level games in Bermuda, China, Italy, Mexico, Tanzania and the UK, plus (per NCAA records) collegiate-adjacent games among American military installations in Algeria, Iran, New Guinea, the Philippines, Suriname and some Pacific islands.
So when you hear Michigan and Western Michigan are planning to open 2026 in Frankfurt as the first FBS teams to play in Germany, know it's not just Modern College Football Chasing Trends And Trying To Be The NFL. It's also College Football Just Being Itself.
OK, that's all for today. Email me at untilsaturday@theathletic.com to tell me which country should host a CFB game next.
Last week's most-clicked: Obviously, it was 'Ranking every Power 4 team by how much they'd sell for.' 💰
📫 Love Until Saturday? Check out The Athletic's other newsletters, too.
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