Picking playoff contenders and a champion for 2023: The West
Can any teams from the last round of the Big 12 and Pac-12 conferences make the playoffs in 2023?
If you missed my intro to this big 2023 college football playoff preview and prognostication, we’re going to evaluate college football’s contenders, region by region, to determine what the likely playoff field will be.
My main criteria will be:
Elite athleticism in the space force, particularly wide receiver and defensive tackle.
Rule of three defense (do you have at least three top notch cover men in the secondary?)
Pass game sophistication. Ideally a dropback passing game but at the very least some high level methods of involving game changing receivers.
Here at America’s War Game we’re big believers in air power and air power negation.
Today we begin our survey out west, scanning the soon to be defunct Pac-12 and pillaged Big 12 for potential playoff contenders. It’s ironic the Pac-12 is likely to be stronger than it’s been in a long time in its final year of existence. On the other hand, beefing up the football programs and fleeing the conference have gone hand in hand for USC (in particular) and Oregon.
It’s also interesting that the power dynamic in the Big 12 appears to be flipping from one blue blood to the other in the final season. If Texas makes good on their potential this season and wins the conference, they’ll have won the first ever Big 12 Championship (1996) and the final for which they were a member (2023).
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.Ecclesiastes 1:4-7
The middle was packed with 13.5 Oklahoma Championships (I only award a half-title for 2012 when the other winner beat Oklahoma in Norman and there was no title game) whereas if Texas adds one more this season, they’ll finish with just four.
Some day Nick Saban will retire and Alabama too will have to endure the cycles of life. Meanwhile, here’s what I make of the West.
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