The Fishers Declare War On Tate & College Football Cinderellas

Good morning and welcome to 4th & Forever, Rand & Tate’s College Football Newsletter. The reader-favorite section ‘Texts of the Week’ is back after a monthslong hiatus which may set off the 2024 version of the Hatfields & McCoys. Rand’s pain & suffering at the hands of Wake Forest athletics is still ever present as Tate gloats about a victory on the basketball court but continues his unimpressive betting streak. In addition to talking about our problems like you are our therapists, we also break down the bracket pool, and discuss Cinderella’s with a CFB twist so without further ado, let’s get to it!

4&F March Madness Bracket Pool

The 4th & Forever bracket pool closed last week with a pot of $610. As a reminder, the winner takes all with second place getting their crispy Hamilton back. That sentence is contradictory to the notion of ‘winner takes all’ but sue us, whatever. With the Sweet Sixteen tipping off later Thursday night, we’ve got Kaitlyn Darcy sitting in first who unsurprisingly also has the highest max points remaining in the pool. Rand received a text from Kaitlyn proclaiming, “Told ya I’m good at this.” We’ll see how this holds because I received similar texts from one of my sister’s after her antithetically named bracket ‘Probably last place’ was seen in first place for much of last weekend only to fall by the wayside come Sunday. In second place we’ve got Patrick Costello who noted, “I based my picks on absolutely nothing.” Solid strategy thus far. In third place, we’ve got current Duke Law student Jack Zucker who picked Purdue to win it all and you can cast your own judgements based on your collegiate allegiances. We will not offer up his email or phone number but he’s not hard to find. Using ESPN’s (likely gimmicky) analytics software they currently project 6th place Greg Wiedeman as having the best chance to win the pool at 12.6% and the second highest odds is ‘Diva’s Picks :)’ who just so happens to be Tate’s girlfriend and is sitting in 39th place. We’ll see how the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight shake out this weekend but it’s still a wide open contest. Except for anyone who picked Auburn…you know who you are. If you want to check out the full standings, they can be found here. 

Sorry Bout It, Deacs!

November 10th, 2023. It was a warm but rainy autumn night in Athens, GA when the 1-0 Wake Forest Demon Deacons basketball team came to town with hopes of picking up a huge road win over an SEC team. Considering Georgia was 0-1 and hadn’t been good in years, it might’ve been a winnable game, wouldn’t you say? Well, you’d be wrong, because the Dawgs won 80-77, and 51% of 4th & Forever was officially determined to be Tate’s. Rand was in shambles.

But the Deacs would have another shot! With both Wake and UGA accepting NIT bids and each winning their first game, the two were set for a rematch - this time in Winston-Salem. Surely the Deacs can win this one, right? After all, the first game was a close loss on the road early in the season. The Deacs will be ready for revenge at home, right? WRONG. The Dawgs beat the Deacs for the second time this season this past Sunday, this time as a 7.5-point underdog, shaming the Fisher family for all of eternity. The mighty Georgia Bulldogs then went on to beat Ohio State on Tuesday to move to the NIT semifinals while continuing to look like a dangerous up-and-coming team in the SEC, with Wake getting some much-needed rest back at home. Sorry about it, Deac fans*. We can’t all be elite.

* -Tate is only being mean to his Wake friends in response to the Fisher family's comments in “Texts of the Week” below. Go Deacs!

Can College Football Have Cinderellas?

Last Thursday we discussed our all-time favorite college basketball tournament Cinderellas and gave you our four picks for potential Cinderellas in this year’s tournament. Those teams went a combined 1-4 last weekend so maybe you shouldn’t be listening to us, but nonetheless, the conversation got us thinking. With the playoff expanding to 12 teams in 2024 and 2025 and likely expanding again to 14 or more teams after that, do we need to start thinking about potential college football Cinderellas in this day and age?

Can a college football Cinderella even exist in the first place?

Tate: I am going to say yes, but the definition is going to have to be different. Our favorite college basketball cinderella programs often don’t even have football teams, and even the expanded College Football Playoff won’t provide nearly the amount of access to smaller programs and conferences that the NCAA Tournament does. A college football “Cinderella” isn’t going to be Davidson or George Mason, but if we define “Cinderella” simply as a team we never saw coming, then yes, we will definitely be seeing them.

Hell, we just did! The 2022 TCU team was unranked to start the year, returned a bunch of players from a team that went 5-7 the year before and had a first-year head coach. They won close games to keep their run alive multiple times - sometimes in miraculous fashion - and pulled off one of college football’s all-time upsets in defeating Michigan in their semifinal Fiesta Bowl win. We don’t require a college basketball team to win the national championship to be considered a “Cinderella”, so Georgia’s 58-point evisceration of the Horned Frogs doesn’t seem relevant to me. That team was a Cinderella because they weren’t a program that usually competes for national titles and nobody saw them coming - and that was in a 4 team playoff. We’ll see even more Cinderellas with the expanded format, they may just be a little more Kansas State-ish than Loyola-Chicago-ish.

Rand: I agree that the definition will be vastly different from basketball but disagree that TCU counts as one. I think a true Cinderella in the 12-team playoff format will have to exclusively come from the Group of 5 slot or the lowest tier of teams in the Power 4 conferences. TCU did come out of nowhere in 2022 given their 2021 performance, but it’s not like they fell ass backwards into success like Scrooge McDuck or Kim Kardashian. Going all the way back to the turn of the century when they had LaDainian Tomlinson and their rise through the conference ranks which included a Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and guys like Andy Dalton, Trevone Boykin, and Quentin Johnston they established proof of concept for success at the highest levels of the sport. If TCU had beaten Georgia in the National Championship, then maybe they’d be a Cinderella but it’s a hell of a lot easier to win 2-3 games in the basketball tournament than it is to even win one on the gridiron. 

Put another way, I don’t think a household college football brand or program with even a modest history of football success can be a Cinderella. If the 12 team playoff were in place last year and FSU rattled off a few wins with their backup or 3rd-string QB would we be calling them a Cinderella? No, we’d classify them as a supremely talented team who can go up against the best of the sport in lieu of the QB situation. Did we consider Cardale Jones and 2014 Ohio State a Cinderella? Is N.C. State basketball considered a Cinderella right now? Not in my opinion and while the story is great they’ve beaten Texas Tech & Oakland thus far. Let’s talk if they beat Marquette Friday night. Therefore, I think a Cinderella would have to come from the Indiana’s and Duke’s of the world at the P4 level but primarily from the G5 slot which means teams like Liberty, Memphis, UTSA, etc. Even then, I think we’d have to define success as merely winning 1 game in the 12 team playoff. Boise State v Oklahoma was awesome and so was App State v Michigan but what odds would you give either of them to line up the very next week and beat an Ohio State team in Columbus or a Texas team in Austin? Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice - just ask TCU.

Who could be the 12-team playoff’s first Cinderella in 2024?

Tate: This question just screams “KANSAS!!!!” to me. The Jayhawks will likely be ranked somewhere between 18-25 to start the season, but with Texas and Oklahoma’s exit to the SEC, the Big 12 is going to be wide open. Kansas returns a fun, loveable, and really good quarterback in Jalon Daniels, and the Jayhawks run one of the most exciting and efficient offenses in the country. This is a historically awful football program that just so happens to be peaking at the same time as the introduction of the 12-team playoff, and if the Jayhawks do end up making it, they’re going to be both a fan favorite and a very dangerous team to play.

Rand: Deion! Deion! Deion! Alright, enough SEO algorithm gimmicks because like Tate, I’m going to pick a fringe preseason top 25 team but roll with the Pony Express & SMU. Head coach Rhett Lashlee is an offensive savant and they return most of their offense including millionth-year QB Preston Stone. They were top 25 nationally in almost offensive efficiency and scoring metric last year and were 1 spot away in the polls from grabbing the G5 bowl slot and facing Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl. SMU enters the ACC this fall and aside from a trip to Louisville and a visit from Florida State, their schedule is cake. Their next two hardest games are BYU and TCU at home and they end the season with a streak of @Stanford, @Duke, Pitt, Boston College, @Virginia, Cal. I could see SMU sneaking into the playoff even with a loss or two and making some noise against teams with defensive inefficiencies. Looking at you USC and LSU.

Texts of the Week

“Do they sell NIT Final Four polos?” - Eli Shankman

“Remember when Auburn and Florida lost today”  - Sam Weinbach, Friday 11:25pm

“Holy sh*t I just remembered when Auburn and Florida lost at the same time and have no more games to play. Cannot relate.” - Sam Weinbach, Saturday 12:35am

“Tate is apparently infamous for being one of the most inside sports knowledgeable people around but being absolutely horrendous at betting. His Mom’s and his girlfriend’s brackets are outperforming his.” -an unnamed relative of Rand in a family groupchat breaking down the bracket pool. 

“I would actually like to see NC State make a run, even though it would probably drop me down to dead last - below Tate - in the pool if they do.” -The same unnamed relative of Rand in the same family groupchat. 

“Surely Tate intentionally tried for last?” -This time a different unnamed relative of Rand in the same family groupchat. Don’t take it personally Tate, the Fisher’s just expect more out of your picks & bets.

“Make sure you pick an early upset of Auburn as it’s the only thing guaranteed in this year’s bracket.” -Rand Fisher last Monday to noted Auburn fan Owen Powell who also picked Auburn to win it all in the bracket pool. Should’ve listened to me Owen…

“Do you think they punish terrorists by making them listen to Debbie Antonelli call their fav sports teams game? If they don’t, they should.” -(Name Redacted)

Where in the World is Rand?

I’ll be in Winston-Salami (not a typo, iykyk) to catch the Wake-UNC baseball series. If you’re a loyal reader of 4&F and have never met me, or have known me my whole life, you’ll understand why I chose this series specifically. Go Deacs & Roll Tide.

Have a great weekend and we’ll talk to you again next Thursday.

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Rand Fisher & Tate Smillie met a few years ago through their good buddy Dave Peljovich who went to college with Rand and high school with Tate. Tate went to Georgia and has spent two years of the last three years collecting championship rings while traveling to watch the Dawgs. Rand went to known CFB powerhouse Wake Forest and currently pays rent in Atlanta but is rarely found there with all the work & CFB travel he does.