What I Know, What I Think, What I Wonder – The Last Preseason Edition Edition

I know that Carnell Tate isn’t the first guy I think of when it comes to returning kickoffs, but he was the first guy out there in the spring game. He was also the first name mentioned by Ryan Day last week. It does not give me confidence that they are interested in making the return game a priority. Rather, they are simply going to take the ball on the 25-yard line with a fair catch.

I think that this could also be an indication that the confidence in the offense is pretty high and they don’t anticipate needing 5-10 yards of help from a kickoff return. They are okay taking a free 25 yards and getting to work. That doesn’t mean they won’t set up some returns, but I’m no longer expecting the kickoff return touchdown drought to end this year, unless it happens in the fourth quarter thanks to a young guy shooting his shot (see: Caleb Downs last year as a punt returner).

I wonder what Mylan Graham is doing around the 5:24 mark of the fourth quarter against Akron.

I know that the CFP Committee is no longer using conference championships as a data point when it comes to their decision-making process. That recognition is now embedded into the selection process, so they removed it when serving as a tiebreaker between comparable teams. I was hoping for a preseason teleconference with committee chair WARDE MANUEL but was told there won’t be a teleconference until the first rankings release on November 5.

I think the removal of the conference championship data point is fine, but they should add a data point for simply making a conference championship game. Teams should not be penalized for losing a conference championship game when it comes to comparing them to teams that didn’t even make a conference championship game. For instance, should a 10-2 Penn State team make it over a 10-3 Big Ten CG loser? Only if there’s a head-to-head win to their credit. There are going to be situations like this spanning the conferences and the committee will pick and choose what reasoning they’d like to use per argument. Having twelve teams makes things easier but it increases the possibility of shenaniganery.

I wonder how many teleconferences Warde Manuel will be too busy with other things to attend this year.

To read the rest of this extended edition of What I Know, What I Think, What I Wonder, you can click here, but you’ll need to be a premium subscriber. Additional topics include expectations for Mylan Graham, concerns about the offensive line situation, Ohio State’s super sophs, and much, much more.