I hope everyone had a safe New Year’s Eve and has a Happy New Year.
Wisconsin came up short against LSU and Iowa can’t seem to score against Tennessee, same old same old for both Big Ten teams. I wonder who Iowa will choose as their new OC?
Liberty is showing why Group of Five teams seldom stack up to Top 10 caliber teams.
I’m getting snacks set up for the Playoff Semifinal Bowls, I hope Michigan doesn’t lay an egg (as they have done in the playoffs before) and I hope Washington pushes Texas into Lake Ponchartrain.
Texas got a relatively easy first-year SEC schedule, but the SEC is sticking with an 8 game conference schedule so they can keep their November creampuffs. I hope that backfires.
Kayla Burton, the granddaughter of NU legend Ron Burton (a College Football Hall of Famer) and daughter of NU football player Steve Burton & swimmer Ginni Vath, was the sideline reporter/postgame host for the Tennessee/Iowa game:
The sideline reporter/postgame host for the Tennessee/Iowa game was Kayla Burton, the granddaughter of NU legend Ron Burton (a College Football Hall of Famer and first draft pick of the Boston Patriots) and daughter of NU football player Steve Burton & swimmer Ginni Vath.
So it’s Michigan vs Washington for the NC next week, the last two undefeated teams.
Michigan made plenty of mistakes but scored when they had to. Texas and Washington played down to the last second.
I was having deja vu when they put one second back on the clock at the end, that’s what they did for Texas in Nebraska’s last Big Twelve (championship) game. Texas won that game.
Maybe I just missed it, but I haven’t seen a lot of speculation on what a 12 team playoff field would have looked like this year, would the top 4 have been the same?
I know Michigan is the favorite, but I think Washington might have more weapons on offense. Michael Penix Jr looked really good last night, I wouldn’t mind seeing him in a Bears uniform next fall. I think he now has the supporting cast he needed at Indiana, and has managed to stay healthy, too.
I thought I read that with the at least temporary demise of the Pac-12, the playoffs would be the 5 highest rated conference champions plus 7 at-large teams, rather than 6-6.
If Washington State and Oregon State merge the Pac-12 with the Mountain West, as most people expect to happen in 2 years, will they still qualify as a Power-5 conference?
Good bye to the final 4 selection. My vote for the most exciting game in the 10 year history would still be Alabama’s win over Georgia in the title game with Tua throwing the apparent desperation walk off TD
No doubt that as a pair ,yesterday’s 2 semi final games were the most exciting of any semi final games in the 10 year history of the CFP.
Even though it will be for all the marbles, The final will be hard to match either of them .
I am still in amazement at how smart or lucky the committee looks after yesterdays thrillers.
With the expanded format , it will be hard to replicate yesterdays excitement , but at least any teams that get bypassed over the selection will only be a top 10-15 team vs a top 5 and possibly an undefeated team
I must admit way back when, I was against the CFP process ( program?) but it has generated some incredibly edge of your seat games
I wouldn’t discount last year’s semifinal games. You had the underdog TCU beating Michigan in a wild shootout and you had the OSU/Georgia game literally end as the New Year’s ball dropped on the final play in epic fashion for UGA fans and heartbreak for OSU fans.
The first year was pretty great as well with OSU’s upset of Bama.
I just wish the Granddaddy had a better send off than Slick Nick vs. Jimmy the Cheater. We were robbed of a UDub/Michigan Rose Bowl finale when UGA slipped up in Atlanta.
But in the end the CFP was just as dumb as the B(C)S … you can’t have a two/four team playoff and then leave out a conference champion to sneak in another SEC team based on the “eye test” yet say that in college football, the regular season “means more” than in other sports. The year Bama won the “title” in the BCS despite not even winning its own division (yet alone conference) doomed the BCS credibility and leaving out an unbeaten P5 champ like FSU to sneak in an SEC team you had at #8 before the final rankings made the CFP just as much of a joke.
Finally next year it will be decided on the field. The four P4 champs get a bye as they should for winning the leagues and the rest better start beefing up their schedules to make the cut. Will it be full of SEC/Big Ten teams? Sure. Will there be controversy over #12 and #13? Of course. But it will finally be decided on the field for everyone who wins their conference as it should be. A true playoff.
The bowls have died (they should be converted into preseason showdowns for big teams like Atlanta and Dallas are starting to do in Week 0), the BCS is dead and good riddance to the CFP. Viva la Playoff!
It won’t necessarily be the P4 champions who get a bye, it’ll be the 4 highest rated conference champions. I would expect them to be P4 teams 98% of the time, mostly because Group of 5 teams don’t have the kinds of schedules that lead to a top 5 rating. And if the Pac-12 revives itself as a P5 conference, then you run the risk of 5 bye-worthy conference champions, so it’s FSU (or Penn State) all over again, with the odd-team out not getting that all-important bye.
And that, plus the money that will be dangled, is why I think a 16 team format is in the not-too-distant future.
I’m not sure what odds I would give for the Pac 2 or how many , to become a P5 conference or that we will simply morph into P4 . P4 ,would be a bit cleaner with no FSU repeat issue, but pretty much by definition there will be controversy . But yeah I d rather the squawking is who should or shouldn’t have gotten a bye vs who should have made the final 4? Or which #10-15 team got shafted ?
This too will throw more hot water on the witches wax concept of student- athlete as the athletic season gets far extended for those teams that make the finals and semifinals I know with NIL and The Portal, Im dreaming anyhow , of putting that genie back in the bottle
( I wonder too about academic eligibility when the semester/ quarter ending grades come in before some of the later rounds —now the grades might not somehow be posted until a bit after new years)
68 teams hasn’t ended the discussion of what teams deserve NCAA Tournament bids, but by the time you throw in the minor conference automatic bids, the bubble teams that get argued about are those that should get a 10 or 11 seed, not a 14-15-16 seed.
I’ve lost count of how many G-5 teams got upgraded by moving to a P5 conference like the Big Twelve.
There are two aspects to P5 schools. One: AQ to playoff which will not be granted to a PAC-12/MWC. The second aspect is NcAA governance where P5 schools have more power and autonomy. It is unclear but unlikely the “new” PAC-12 (or however many) would still be a P5 conference for that purpose. The reverse merger idea is more about branding and the PAC-12 assets than trying to preserve P5 status.