There will be "in-depth discussions" about not guaranteeing conference champs the top 4 @CFBPlayoff seeds in 2025, sources said. Top 5 conference champs still would get in playoff but rankings would determine seeds, sources said. This would require unanimous approval by all stake...— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 30, 2024
Only a few more steps until ESPN's wet dream of the SEC Invitational is made a reality.
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Didn't see that coming....
It will move to 16- soon - with 4 auto bids for both the SEC and B1G- so this year Bama gets in as an automatic. The B1G already had 4 in but now they are guaranteed. Those conferences will also be eligible for at large bids of course. And yes they will build the bracket based on rankings, but won't re-seed because people like neat brackets and you can eliminate travel options that way and book early.
It's almost as if they've asked "how can we make something that's almost unwatchable completely unwatchable?"
I have proudly avoided watching any of the playoffs. That will not change any time soon
I haven't watched a minute of the playoffs either. Honestly, it's not that I even have to try and resist as I just find myself completely disinterested because of what the sport has become.
I must confess, Tennessee getting molly-whopped was too glorious to look away. I did watch every minute of that one.
Imagine being the Molly that got whopped so bad the entire English language made it a thing.
What if Molly was the one that dished out the whopping?
Either way, I want to know what the circumstances were.
Her real name was Mary Ludwig Hayes and the British found out she had hands the hard way at the Battle of Monmouth
Well, they did kill her husband, so it basically played out like an action movie starring ScarJo or Kate Beckinsale
Would watch the shit out of that movie. Respectfully.
Was reading this while riding in the car in way back from Charlotte today; my friend said "OR maybe it was supposed to be "flogging" and that's why the band named itself "flogging mollies"?
The play-in round of games were unwatchable. I was really hopeful that Arizona State might be able to advance and with that out of the way away I'm not going to be able to bring myself to watch Ohio State death-star everyone else. The Rose Bowl was gross last night.
I... Don't have a problem with this?
The playoff is going to 14 or 16 teams, that means that between zero and two teams will get byes. So either the top two seeds – who will likely both be conference champions – will get byes or no one will.
Big nothing burger
Love your positivity...
However, if there's only one certain thing in life, it's "let's see how much more fubar we can make college football..."
What it does, though, is set the stage for locking out non P2 conference champions entirely. It's the next step in the process of making this a tournament for the most popular teams from the sec and b1g.
By saying conference champions aren't guaranteed a bye the next logical step is to say that conference champions aren't guaranteed a spot at all which leads to the committee putting 8 (or 12 or 16 or whatever) sec and big teams in based on "resume" or whatever other bullshit spins ESPN can concoct.
I want to say something like oh come on, that is a huge leap from what they are saying to get to and ... But, sadly, what you say is definitely plausible.
Like you, I've avoiding watching any of the playoff games. Actually, have not watched anything other than the recording I made of Iowa State's game. And I probably would have just deleted it if they had not won. That's how disinterested I've become too.
It would have been a huge leap 5 years ago. But the way the last 5 years have gone... It's absolutely plausible. That's the reason I can't watch this garbage anymore. It's barreling so quickly in the direction I didn't want it to that my mind is a little blown. I didn't think it would get this bad this quickly... But here we are.
It's not even just plausible.
The way that ESPN had their talking heads foaming at the mouth over someone like SMU, who played in a title game that they narrowly lost, being in the playoff over "deserving" 3 loss Alabama it's inevitable that they'll point the death ray at the conference champion auto-bids knowing damn well it will just maximize SEC entrants. I mean shit, Herbie is already on record saying we focus too much on the games that teams win, we are basically already at that point.
I had this same argument about the NFL like 20 years ago. I never understood why a 7-9 team should have a chance to host a 15-1 team. Their argument is that winning the conference should mean something, which is a spot in the playoff. Now it is different in college because they don't seed by wins. But winning a conference means you get in, no need to sweeten the pot.
"I never understood why a 7-9 team should have a chance to host a 15-1 team." This has never happened... i.e. there has been only 1 undefeated team since 72- the patriots - the 5 seeds that year the NY giants- 10-6 and Jags 11-5 were the teams that could have played at a division winner with a worse record. So its never been nearly that extreme. Having said that- this year could be bad... the loser of Detroit/Minny will have 3 losses and could travel to 7 loss LA Rams potentially, yes.
I thought there was a 14-2 team one year.
There is plenty to be upset about right now - the proposal that the P2 will each be (officially) guaranteed multiple playoff spots is a big issue - far more significant than giving byes to the top 2 teams instead of the top 2 conference champions.
You're missing the forest for the trees my brother. This particular change in and of itself, not a big deal. But the groundwork it lays spells trouble.
No, I'm not missing the forest at all... I just think that the groundwork has already been laid, the stage has already been set, etc.
This particular change is completely irrelevant.
yup. "and so it begins" is the new "the first domino has fallen"
Conference champion invitations are the fig-leaf that keep them out of anti-trust hearings. That will remain until the P2 split off and form their own league. So instead we will get to watch the SEC runner-up vaporize the Mount West champion, or the ACC champion, etc.
I don't buy this - suppose the committee seats 8 teams from the B1G and SEC in the playoff and no other conferences get in. But the placement is based on nonsense arguments like "strength of schedule" and "resume" and "good losses" and the like. There is nothing that says the committee is compelled to place conference champions in the playoff - so....what argument would there be for anti-trust?
Collusion to prevent access. That's more or less the structure of the old BCS, albeit with more teams, that had a flurry of anti-trust suits in various states back in the 2010-2011 timeframe that lead to the four-team playoff and the inclusion of the highest ranked G5 champion. That G5 rep was there as the fig leaf in that structure.
The non P2 schools would get a lot closer to inclusion and being part of the adults table if they simply refused to play P2 teams until there was more equity in competition and revenue. That is much much much more effective than a court room. If VT backed out of the USCe game next year for example and USCe had to play a B1G or SEC team instead the entire schedule, changes would happen and soon. But the non P2 doesn't have the guts to do that, thus they will continue to allow ESPN to keep their boot on our necks and press firmly each year.
I do think something like this needs to happen writ large. Let the BIG and SEC go off and play each other, then they can enjoy their 7-5 or 5-7 records. The vast middle of the sport could go back to playing regional rivalries, and the sport would become more affordable as a result of not having to keep up with the Joneses.
I agree. I see no reason why Arizona State and Boise State should be getting a bye. And I'm not a fan of Texas and Penn State getting a virtual pass to the semifinals by playing those "Top 4 seeded" teams.
A 12- or 16-team playoff is never going to be perfect, and there is always going to be some SEC/Big 10 favoritism. The saving grace is that the teams from those conferences have to actually win on the field to make it to the championship game.
This is basically the only way to disincentivize these 18+ team mega conferences. Shit, 2 teams made the playoff this year in major conferences just by beating mediocre conference opponents and mostly dodging the good teams (Indiana and SMU).
Conferences this big are stupid and bad. If your conference can't round Robin (even with divisions) it's too big. If the SEC can just pile in 30 teams, but you're only guaranteed to have one winner get a bye, it self-regulates that sort of unstable conference structure.
Top 4 conference champs get the 4 byes. Great. There's no need to overengineer a playoff. It's already been invented; college football is literally the last team sport to deploy one.
Having watched the ASU-TX game today, not sure TX thinks they had a "virtual pass"- was one of the most entertaining of the CFP playoff games thus far...
Yeah, I must have pissed off ASU or something. That 4th quarter was something else. I was pulling hard for the upset.
I don't either, it was an ill-conceived guardrail. There's no guarantee the top four teams are from unique conference. The problem is, when combined with the current state of affairs, the outcome won't be good for non-P2.
Unfortunately the whole thing is basically designed to allow for participation for non-P2 teams and not much more. This whole thing generates a pile of money and the P2 are working hard to share it with as few non-P2s as possible while avoiding getting into an anti-trust judgment.
If you're frustrated by the lack of parity, the playoff isn't a problem. The problem is that the monied teams have consolidated into 2 leagues, which means those two leagues can demand more money, which means they have more resources.
The 12 team playoff would have worked fine if the P12 and B12 were still in tact, as they were 2 year ago.
OBJECTION: CONJECTURE
You have no idea if the playoff would work any differently now if conference realignment hadn't occurred.
The playoff isn't broken because of conference realignment. The playoff is broken because of the way it was initially set up, which was deeply flawed from the word go.
College football isn't broken because of the playoff. College football isn't broken because of conference realignment. College football isn't broken because of NIL. None of these things, on their own, are the sole reason CFB is no fun anymore. But all of these things are symptoms of a bigger issue. Greed. CFB is no-fun because the rich insist on getting richer at the expense of everyone else and there is no one trying to stop them. The flawed playoff, NIL, and conference realignment are all just mechanisms that the powers-that-be have used to enrich themselves.
"College football isn't broken because of NIL"- I'd argue it is for most fans. Sure nothing changed for Bama and OSU except their players now get paid above the table/in the open. Yippie! But for me- a Virginia Tech fan- fuck NIL- its why we can't recruit, compete and keep a roster now. It's not greed by the ACC, no it's pay for play- period. If there was some way to actually enforce real NIL- meaning Tuten gets a little money from Cook Out to do a spot in blacksburg because he's our best player- fine. VT can compete in that world. But we will never beat Texas in a sugar bowl with Bryan Still and Druck if their QB room literally has 8 million in NIL money sitting in it and we have drones getting 300K max. VT is done in that scenario every time. As long as NIL is not in any way shape or form NIL, that is the root cause why college football sucks for fans of most teams.
you're not wrong. my point is that college football isn't only broken because of (NIL, Conference realignment, flawed playoff, etc. etc.) these things. There is no single cause, nor is there any single solution. But they all have a common denominator. Money.
I was thinking about this the other day. We will never have another Sam Rogers. A guy that comes in off the radar and turns into a legend and piece of VT lore. Because the Big Ten would come in and hire him away.
It's not just NIL, it's NIL combined with the unlimited transfer portal that's turned every team from #15 to #135 into a farm system for the top schools. You could at least have a fat NIL contract with a player and lock him down for a certain number of years and receive compensation if another league wanted to buy them out in a better regulated sport.
The NCAA was so married to the concept of amateurism that they failed to modernize, failed to regulate for the world as it actually exists, and got themselves put into irrelevancy. And now it's the Wild West and the people with the biggest war chest win.
Look at the semi finals. The wealthiest university on the planet (Texas), the biggest athletic budget (anOSU), Special Because They're Special Notre Dame, and Penn State. When another BIG school is the "poorest" member of the semi-bracket... yikes.
Fair, definitely true.
Perhaps it would have been more accurate if I had said: "The 12-team playoff was conceived at a time when there were 5 power conferences, none with a significant resource advantage. Now, 32 teams from two conferences have a significant resource advantage purely due to the conference they compete it. This new reality does not fit the previously-conceived 12 team playoff format"
More accurate?
Hmm can you elaborate?
yes, that would be more accurate to say. My point, though, is that even though conference realignment is part of the larger problem, it's not really the reason the college football playoff is broken. The college football playoff was broken to begin with. See below.
I already have, ad nauseam. If you've been paying attention you'll know that I feel very strongly about this: The CFB should have made conference championship a mandatory pre-requisite for making it to the playoff. FULL STOP. By making the playoff accessible to non-conference champions it completely undermines the entire playoff and leaves us with the mess we're in where people are doing mental gymnastics to justify adding 4 more teams to the playoff every iteration because "3-loss Alabama deserves a spot" when, in fact, they very clearly do not as they had 3 losses and couldn't even win their fucking conference. boo-fucking-hoo.
Creating a playoff where teams that don't even win their own division are allowed to play has led us down the road we're on, where the teams with the most are making moves to shut everyone else out.
"couldn't even win their fucking conference. boo-fucking-hoo."- look I agree with this on the surface, I do. However its not as cut and dry now as it used to be- SMU came in and went undefeated in the ACC and got to Charlotte- something they never did in CUSA and only did once in the clown AAC. Let that sink in. So yeah do I think Ohio State is better than SMU and Clemson and any other ACC team this year? yes I do. Do I think Penn State would have won the ACC going away? Yes I do. Do I think that the B1G is better than the Big 12? yes. Now the division thing is certainly true- if you can't win a division, you probably shouldn't be playing for the national title. And then there is ND- who gets in as an independent. They have no conference championship to win... are they a top 12 team this year? probably yes.
first of all, everyone is all fucked up trying to create a playoff with "the best" or "most deserving" teams. Whatever that means. That's the problem. The playoff should never have been the circus show that it is now. It got overly complicated and now the playoff draws all of the attention for the entire season. Not how it should be. The post season in college football is meant to be fun and whacky but, otherwise, mostly meaningless. The regular season is where the juice should be. If you don't care about trying to get the best teams into the same post season tournament then you're fine with letting conference champions duke it out on the field for bragging rights and keeping the focus on the regular season, as it should be.
Secondly, fuck notre dame. If they want to play in the meaningless playoff, they can join a conference.
Deserving is 100% subjective, but could be applied in a meaningful way- as in who PROVED this regular season that they deserve a shot at the national title? That's what this should be about- an honest attempt to prove who the best team is at the end of the playoff. Did Boise State proved they deserved a chance- not in the fiesta bowl- but a chance to actually win it all? This is the problem I have with 9 big 12 hoops teams- many with under .500 records getting at large bids to the dance. THAT regular season is totally meaningless. Can Oklahoma hoops - 5-13 in the Big 12 WIN the natty? nope, so get them the fuck out of the dance. NC State 1983 you say? well the only way they got a chance was winning the ACC tournament - they PROVED that they could beat quality teams 3 games in a row to get there. Then they were shipped to literally a no tell motel in portland for the first and second round. lol. I think the committee should reward the regular season- yes 100%, but work backwards... what 12 teams have PROVEN they can compete for an actual title. Take bama this year- they lost to Vandy and OKlahoma... they weren't winning this playoff. That's the right call. I know its nuance, but if they worked backwards, I think the field would have been a little different.
Deserving = Who has the best regular season resume?
Best = Who would Vegas favor?
The most logical way is a combination of quality wins AND no bad losses. That shows you a team can beat the top teams in a playoff. This year Bama had quality wins but bad losses. ND had a horrible loss but just one and enough quality wins. OSU had ONE bad loss, not multiple. Penn State didn't really have a great win, but zero bad losses. That is the most logical formula- meaning SMU is out- no great wins. Boise didn't have a great win, but they didn't have a bad loss either.
The focus on the playoff, from the very start of the season, is nauseating. Figuring out the one best team is about as interesting as figuring out the one best player. That's not why I enjoy CFB. It's all the weird trophies, the bragging rights, the regional rivalries, the endearing traditions. These are all things that the NFL would kill for in terms of engagement and for 95% of the teams that don't have a shot at the CFP these are the things that actually move the needle.
Remember when Gameday used to go to a college town and they'd have a reporter go out and hit up the local restaurants for some local color? Now we've got Playoff, playoff, gambling, gambling, playoff, Pat McAfee, playoff, etc. It's boring.
One of the roles that the CFP fulfills is taking the heat off of teams and coaches for not winning their conference, imho. "It's okay, Bama didn't make the SEC championship but they can still be in the playoff." That's a feature for the BIG and the SEC, so they can have a sufficient level of success to reduce the buyout churn. And to make the P2 more money. Determining a "fair" champion is like third on the list of goals for the CFP, maybe not even that.
Why yes, I am very cynical about the whole thing.
You aren't wrong though - we are this close to having another all Single Conference CFB final that will draw a terrible rating. Not allowing that to happen again should have been a consideration from the jump, that it wasn't kind of gives up the whole gag.
Oh 100% agree. The money combined with the deliberately disorganized confederation of interests that pass for governance in the sport is the heart of the issue. The money incentivizes the lack of governance, which begets more money. Repeat and feed the gyre. All of the other ills discussed below stem from this. Unlimited NIL. No contract structure for players (because they can't be employees, *wink wink* because they're students and It's Different. *wink wink*). No constraints on transfers. Not really having the ability to see a team of player develop over a career at a school. On and on.
Tech along with all non SEC and Big can't count college football programs will be left behind by the ESPN/ TV cartel's CFP.
Which will end up completely imploding the sport. Without the eyeballs that are interested in the other conferences, ESPN won't be able to pay the exorbitant TV contracts they do today.
So we should root for this stupidity then?
No, we should riot like European soccer fans did.
But we won't, because we aren't built like that in America.
I was more eyeballing the part of ESPN not being able to pay the contracts, which might finally kill the remnants of what was a great brand back in the day
ESPN will always be able to pay the contracts... why? Because American's are addicted to live sports, and they will pay their increases cable/streaming bills when ESPN simply passes the SEC TV contract costs onto us. They raise prices constantly and people pay it. Look at the NFL this year- Pay per view- Thursday night, Christmas day, Wild Card playoff game, the europe/UK games, etc. People gladly pay it to see live NFL games. The super bowl will be pay per view and probably played outside of the US in your lifetime. ESPN will raise fees and you will pay it.
I mean, we're a TV nation, and sports are easier to watch than most of the other nonsense.
This is the eventuality that I expect and can't believe that people don't see coming. This is going to kill the golden goose sooner or later. I don't have a rooting interest in the NFL because I don't have a team that I organically watch and cheer for.
Similarly I don't see myself being able to sustain interest in P2 games if I don't have a team that's competing in that league. This is all going to be very exciting to maybe, what, 5 million people? Well plus the millions of casuals that adopt Notre Dame I suppose.
None of this matters unless commish-in-waiting Saban says it's the way.
I can't take the FBS seriously until conference championships matter like they do in basketball where they don't care what the name of your conference is - you win your conference, you are in the playoffs. This is what it will take to get me vested in the sport again where the pathway to a national championship has everything to do with your W/L record and less about the quality of those wins/losses.
At least the bye gives the underdog teams a chance. CFP is a fucking bore and will continue to be a bore so long as the same 4 teams play each other year in and year out.
Terrible decision. Everything that was good in this format was making winning the conference meaningful. Once again, the NCAA shits the bed.
Not to pick nits, but this isn't the NCAA. This is a CFP decision. Completely separate entity from the NCAA.
Yeah, the NCAA already shat the sheets on this years ago. This is the CFP deciding what will make the CFP the most money.
If you want a bye win your conference. It's pretty simple.
Also Texas and Penn State getting a bye this year would be ridiculous and is a great example of how "4 highest ranked" is a terrible system. Neither team has a single good win
I've decided that the dumbest and stupidest thing is for Penn State to win a natty without ever winning their own conference and so that's the thing I'm pulling for now. Maximum chaos. Maximum Stupid. Maximum Dumb.
Personally, I am on the edge of my seat for a compelling rematch we saw... either OSU/Penn State or GA/Texas for the 3rd time- how fucking exciting that would be- wooo hooo
I will take it a step further. Penn State cannot even win their division (they have only won the East one time, 2016).
But we shouldn't fret too much as I do not see any way that historically upstanding football program 🙄 beats Ohio State (assuming they can get by the ND/UGA winner). I mean the last time that PSU was able to beat OSU was in the aforementioned 2016 season. Franklin ain't getting that national championship.
Bonus content: Have I ever mentioned how much I utterly despise Penn State? 😂
Rest assured I will continue to mention this as the need arises.
Penn State fans want Joe Paterno's statue put back up, and they got all of his wins restored after the NCAA vacated them because he covered up the sexual abuse of children.
Fuck them forever for prioritizing their football pride over child rape. If any program ever deserved the death penalty, it's Penn State.
Amen. A cult for sure. But no different than the cult of middle class people that give Kenny Brooks 5 million in NIL funds for Go Blue womens hoops. It's a bona fide sickness in America. Penn State Football is the most important thing in thousands of peoples lives... over church/family/job. If that wasn't the case, there would have been some measure of backlash from them harboring a pedophile ring for years. But nah, they quickly went back to selling 100K seats every game, major bowl games, 5 star recruits, etc.
I have to disagree. What Penn State did was despicable but it wasn't cheating in football. Multiple people should have been banned from every having anything to do with children, education, and sent to prison, but it wasn't really an NCAA issue. We can agree to disagree.
However in the last 20 years, we had at least two programs running fake departments to keep players eligible or directly paying players. Both Miami and UNC far deserved the death penalty.
SMU- gave Eric Dickerson a car and paid no show jobs for a month after the NCAA warning- Death Penalty, kill the program, lack of institutional control. Tulane- Hot Plate Williams dribbles a few balls off his knee in WINS- death penalty - point shaving, kill the program. BC- the largest cheating/game fixing scandal in history- no real penalty. Arizona State- widespread point shaving- no real penalty. Penn State- Their DC raped kids at a Penn State sponsored camp, paid for kids to go to bowl games to rape them, the long time QB coach tries to cover it up, the head coach lies that he knew nothing about it, then said he knew but didn't "understand" it and after a 50 year career as the head coach, de-facto govenor of PA, owns the town of happy valley has a million member cult- resigns in disgrace- no real penalty. lol.
2 things, first Baylor had both major basketball and football scandals and nothing happened.
Second you forgot about the journalist investigating PSU was found shot in their car with all their papers and notes stolen. No real investigation happened.
Which journalist was this? I remember hearing about Ray Gricar but he disappeared without a trace.
The fact that Baylor hoops had a player murder another player in the first degree. Stop there for fuck sake. AND the coach cover it up- again say that out loud- and that program is alive and signing 4 star recruits and winning national championships is the biggest fucking scam in sports history. They should not be allowed to have a hoops program. They covered up a fucking murder on the team. And yep to add to that, their head football coach knew of a rape ring among the team and did nothing about it. Fucking joy. Bill Dooley contacted high school kids in the dead period and they tried to fucking kill VT football for years.
If the car we are talking about is the gold Trans Am that Dickerson had as a senior in HS, then the story is even more interesting. That car is referred to as Dickerson's Trans A&M because the story is that Texas A&M (recruiter(s) ?, booster(s) ?) gave him the car and then he went ahead and signed with SMU anyway. That always made me chuckle to think about how pissed off A&M would have had to be to go out of their way to cheat so blatantly and still not get the recruit.
Correct- I should have said the NCAA attributed Dickersons car to SMU, which they did in justification for the death penalty.
I completely agree. The administrators at PSU acted somewhere on the spectrum between negligent and coconspirators. It was disgusting, but not cheating in football. But, I do understand that the administrators at PSU behaved the way they did because they wanted to satisfy the fanbase. How do you punish a fanbase without punishing the players? I don't know.
Baylor, on the other hand, was cheating in football IMO. PLAYER were given special legal treatment due to their status as football players. It was both despicable and cheating.
Penn State covered up the assault and rape of children to benefit the football program.
You punish everyone by shutting it down and burning the program to the ground. Instead, they gave them a slap on the wrist because apparently it's ok to molest and assault some boys as long as it wins games.
I might offer a slight recharacterization, though, and say that the cover up was to prevent harm to the program. Maybe I'm splitting hairs too much though.
Paterno telling Kevin Jones and his dad that the only black people at VT were on the football team is lying and cheating to try to benefit the program though. Franklin NIL ing before NIL is cheating to help the football program though.
There's an idea, let's introduce even more subjectivity into an otherwise arbitrary and corrupt process. The irony of all this is that the hesitation to go to a playoff created the problems with the playoffs. What i mean is, not having a playoff led to these super conferences which have gotten so large that strength of schedule is not even consistent within the conference. See Texas, Indiana, etc.
Had they just gone to 8 teams years ago with guaranteed spots for P5 conference champions and 3 at large bids we could've avoided all of this.
Correct- the problem with the strength of wins or strength of schedule argument is that these conferences are so big, the schedules are unbalanced- big time. Tennessee for example plays Bama every year. Kentucky and Mizzou do not. Indiana did not play Penn State this year, and they lost to OSU- their only tough B1G game. SMU did not play Miami or Clemson in the regular season this year. It's always going to be a weak argument due to this imbalance.
ESPN the $EC and CFP to DC: "do not poke holes in our swiss cheese..."
Bingo. Wasena never misses
What's better than a thumb on the scale?
Two thumbs on the scale, built in to the structure of the scale.
Everyone who played in the first round has beaten everyone who had a bye. So far
Not really. The teams who lost in the first round didn't beat teams with a bye. ;^)
One thing that the fans need to keep in mind. This is a two party Tango and the BIG-10 has just as much blood on their hands and maybe even more money on the table. It's a clever bit of PR that the SEC gets all the blame in these discussion but make no mistake. The BIG-10 and the SEC are working towards this eventually together.
SEC struck first by taking OU/Texas. If that doesn't happen, the B10 doesn't go after USC/UCLA, and Oregon/UW aren't driven away from the Pac12. If those moves don't happen, then the SEC and B10 can't demand nearly as much TV money as they do now.
I don't think it's the B10/SEC... I think it's the BlueBloods in each conference. In this new world, Alabama has more in common with OSU than they do Ole Miss. The top 20ish teams will leave everyone else behind.
Texas struck first as always. They killed the SWC by keeping schools out and driving Arkansas to the SEC (second best move ever behind Maryland bolting to the B1G) They killed the Big 12 a slow death by starting the longhorn network- still fucking hilarious to say out loud- they had one championship in a gazillion years and started their own fucking network. Then Texas was going to go independent until Oklahoma got on their knees for them and did a secret package deal the SEC couldn't refuse. Texas simply could not accept 1. Sharing money in the Big 12 and 2. aTm being in a better league than they were, so they weren't going to sit around for that. 3. They told Larry Scott to fuck off years before when he tried to outmaneuver the SEC. Texas is the root of all this shit. I wish they were indy like ND. Then those 2 insufferable pricks could fight for a seat at one table.
The most head shaking part of it all is that the Longhorn Network was a massive failure for ESPN. It lost money hand over fist every year it existed, and yet Texas came out of it looking like the prized belle of the ball with their sweetheart SEC deal that somehow ends up paying them even more than their failure did.
"the Longhorn Network was a massive failure for ESPN."- of course it was. Their million talking head shows lose money hand over first too. NBC loses money on Notre Dame football too. If ESPN fees were capped by cable and streaming companies, they would be out of business. But they simply pass on the failure of the longhorn network to you and I via raising the fees to the cable companies. It is suicide to pull ESPN off your service during football season so the companies just bend over and eventually pass that on to you and I. Why do you think youtube TV is now basically the same price as evil "cable"???? not because of forensic files fees.
Ain't it peculiar how the people with all the money keep making more of the money?
Same as it ever was.
Hence, the expression "the rich get richer". If you have money, you can make the rules. So why WOULDN'T you make the rules to benefit yourself?
It is the blue bloods, and they ultimately will go off and make their own Division at some point and leave the rest of us to maybe play an actual college football game again at some point. The expanded participation in the CFP will keep the lid on that for a few more years but eventually that won't be enough and contraction will begin. As you say, Texas and anOSU have more in common with each other than they do with Mississippi State or Indiana. Why should the very wealthy share all that money when they can share a bigger pie with fewer people? And on it goes.
I do place the blame on Texas like dcwilson says below - their bullshit with the Longhorn Network broke up the Big-12 first. Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri and Texas A&M left to get away from Texas' bullshit well before Red River got poached.
Where is all the talk and tweets about Oregon didn't belong? They took it on the chin worse than Clemson and SMU.
Absolutely. Oregon's pummeling was the worst showing in the entire playoffs so far. They were down 34-0 in the first half!
In fact, the Oregon beatdown completely torpedoes any argument that: 1) Teams like SMU, Boise State and Indiana didn't belong, and 2) That conference champs shouldn't get byes/top 4 seeds. The overall top seed in the whole tournament is the team that most looked like it didn't belong.
If only they lost to a team with a dog mascot
So every conference champion lost their first game of the playoffs. Texas and PSU aret he only conference champ game losers left.