OT: D1

[Chuck Norris]

For what it’s worth, Pitt is favored to beat Texas A & M and is slightly behind Kentucky (who they swept on a neutral court earlier this season) for best odds to win the national championship. So while last year was their best team, this might actually be their best chance to win it all. Of course regardless of what Vegas says, what Texas A & M did to Nebraska can’t be overlooked. It should be a great match on Thursday night.

[Fightingscot82]

Ohio U of the MAC has fired their head coach Brian Smith for cause. Their description, "serious professional misconduct and participating in activities that reflect unfavorably on the University" is directly from his contract. Rumors are rampant: showing up at parties, drinking with students, a sexual relationship with a student, etc.

[Chuck Norris]

Ohio U of the MAC has fired their head coach Brian Smith for cause. Their description, "serious professional misconduct and participating in activities that reflect unfavorably on the University" is directly from his contract. Rumors are rampant: showing up at parties, drinking with students, a sexual relationship with a student, etc.

Lol, I never heard of this guy and was expecting to see some young hotshot. He’s your average, everyday frumpy looking middle aged man. And the head coach at Ohio U? At least Belichick has a bunch of Super Bowl rings.

[IUPNation]

Ohio U of the MAC has fired their head coach Brian Smith for cause. Their description, "serious professional misconduct and participating in activities that reflect unfavorably on the University" is directly from his contract. Rumors are rampant: showing up at parties, drinking with students, a sexual relationship with a student, etc.

Jesus Mary and Joseph...what is wrong these man whores?

Can't you hook up with others outside of work?

[Fightingscot82]

Every football coach with a side piece is wiping their phones and breaking **** off now. But honestly, they all deserve whatever comes.

[IUP24]

I enjoy both Finebaum and Cowherd. To an extent, they both have to play the villain. They have to keep this interesting for 5-6 months.

It just makes me cringe to hear the CFP has to use spots on teams with absolutely zero business being in the field.

I'm still of the belief the P4 is D1. The G5 could become some form of 1-AA and have its own playoffs similar to FCS.

To penalize Texas for playing (and losing closely) at Ohio State ... just doesn't sit right. If that happens, nobody will ever sign for these big non-conference games ever again. There's no point.

Imagine Texas, Miami and Notre Dame left out and freaking James Madison gets in.

The TV networks may explode more than Finebaum.

I'm catching up on 3 weeks of being away lol.

We can't treat these games as scrimmages. I give Texas and Ohio State a ton of credit for playing the home/home series. Both schools signed up for a ton of national attention. They signed up for the spotlight and all the eyeballs. They were talk of the sport all summer. Both schools got a ton of money for that game and everything else that came with it. Win or lose, it benefited both programs. You can't sign up to get all of the good stuff that comes with it, lose, and then say it doesn't matter afterwards.

If you were comparing 9-3 teams for a CFP slot, then sure, I take that loss into account as being one of their 3. But I don't have sympathy for the loser of a game like that after they reap all the other incredible benefits that simply come from it. You got everything else from it, you have to live with the results.

[IUP24]

I hear you, but this isn't basketball. Give Notre Dame weeks to prepare for James Madison and it will be 75-7.

But, if that's what they want, so be it.

I watched in person last year SMU look like a freshman team playing the varsity up at JoePa's house. It was awful. And, that was the ACC champion.

The goal of this obviously can't be to put the actual 12 best teams in the field.

We are 12 years into the playoffs. The average margin of victory in first round games or semifinal games in the previous format was 17.8 points. The average margin of victory in the national championship is 17.3. There was not a single G5 team that played in the first round last year and the average margin of victory was 21.3 points.

There are a ton of people so upset that they believe two G5 teams are going to get boat raced. I'm not sure I understand those individuals. We've been seeing the supposed "best" teams in football getting boatraced in these games for years.

[IUP24]

Some drama in the Yinzerlands this morning on Signing Day.

Fort Cherry star Matt Sieg was thought to be down to either Pitt or Big Game James.

He then announced he's going to Morgantown.

Nice late steal for Rich Rod.

The report was that Sieg committed to WVU two days before signing day. Pitt was aware of that, which allowed them to flip the safety who had committed to Missouri (who is actually a higher rated player). West Virginia made a 1 million dollar revenue share offer to land him, and the promise to play offense. That's the same strategy they used to pry Rodney Gallagher from both Pitt and Penn State and he has fewer than 20 catches in three years at WVU, so I wish Sieg the best of luck in his pursuit of his NFL dreams.

WVU's revenue sharing pot is being spent almost exclusively on high school recruits, which is certainly an interesting strategy given the fluidity of college rosters. What I've read is that they have very little money invested into any player beyond their 2nd or 3rd year in the program.

[IUP24]

I think they’ll probably start with tweaks to the way P4 conferences break ties. You can’t have 7-5 Duke in a conference championship given what those games can end up meaning.

It wouldn’t shock me if conference championship games are eventually done away with altogether.

The contrary opinion is this is exactly what people wanted. They wanted "more games to matter." All of these leagues sold out to the devil for money and survival. The leagues are too big and they all have unbalanced schedules with insane tiebreakers. A situation like this was eventually going to happen with one of the leagues.

The playoff fates of four different teams hung in the balance on the final drive and OT of the ACC Championship. There were JMU fans in Charlotte to root for Duke. It may not have been the outcome many wanted, but this is largely what people asked for. More games. More teams in the mix. More games of importance. Nobody gets to pick and choose which games should matter simply because the outcome or the teams involve are not who or what they prefer. And I know that will generate eye rolls and disagreement, but that is the truth.

[IUP24]

I'd watch Narduzzi vs JoePa.

I'd watch pickleball before tuning into Pitt vs ECU.

Well, what's left of these two teams by kickoff is a different topic. Opt-out and transfer season has arrived.

This is a genuine question, I promise...

Do you like football, or do you just prefer stories, WWE type drama, and watching brands you perceive as being big time football? I'm just genuinely curious.

Because I know you consume D2 football at a rate unlike probably anybody else around and I feel you generally have a "couldn't care less view" towards over 80% of FBS football. I get your sarcasm with the statement, but there's just no world that exists that pickleball is better entertainment than Pitt vs ECU (or ANY bowl game at that level for that matter) lol. And I say that because I know you'll watch Millersville vs Lock Haven or Gannon vs Clarion. The production value of those games and the quality of football just isn't remotely close to that of any FBS football game.

[IUP24]

They brought it on themselves by having one-division conferences of 16, 17, and 18 teams with byzantine tiebreaker systems. If you're going to be too big to have a round robin schedule, then you need to have divisions. If the divisions prove to be unbalanced, tweak them. Imagine a couple of seasons back if you'd said Indiana would be a power in the Big 10's Eastern Division. Penn State doesn't play Ohio State, Oregon, or Indiana next season. Going to one division did nothing to solve schedule imbalance in the B1G.

My perspective from the beginning when they created leagues this size was that they needed pod scheduling with built in "conference playoffs" in the last two weeks that had rotating opponents and predetermined home/away games for the "conference semifinals" similar to how the PSAC structures the crossover weekend with the PSAC championship.

It may be odd to a degree, but it would be better than what currently exists.

[IUP24]

I'd like to see Tulane and James Madison - combined to form an all-star team - and still be a 21-point dog to Notre Dame.

How is that any different than all of the P4 teams who have played in non-competitive games in the CFP over the last 11 years? Most of the playoff games, dating back to the first year, have been non-competitive.

[IUP24]

Been a busy few weeks and haven't been able to read much, but just catching up on the discussion.

The general public outcry over the CFP selection, specifically over JMU and Tulane making the field, is quite alarming to me. And the direction this is all heading is pretty scary. I can appreciate that guys like Joel Klatt and Kirk Herbstreit are saying the quiet part that they deep down wish for out loud, but the number of average joe's who are echoing their sentiments is amazing. Keep in mind... We are fans. We aren't TV executives. We aren't boosters. We aren't people holding water for the networks (or at least we shouldn't be). You either like football or you don't. It's becoming pretty apparent that a lot of people don't like football when it's all said and done. I planned my whole day on Saturday around Army/Navy - because I like football. Kirk Herbstreit told Joey Galloway that he didn't know what to do with himself because there was no football. And I know he wrote a retraction because of the blowback, but he said what he said (and that's what he meant).

You can't create a world where you deny access to a championship for over half of the sport. And truthfully, I don't care who you'd rather see in the CFP over JMU or Tulane, or SMU last year, or whoever. It's not remotely relevant. There's no level of sport, athletics, or league anywhere that intentionally eliminates championship accessibility for over half of their participating members. As long as the odds might be, every other sport has clear parameters on what is necessary to reach the field to have a shot to win a championship. That means everyone has a shot.

It's upsetting that many of us would rather schools like JMU or Tulane be told they aren't deserving of an opportunity all because we'd rather see Tennessee lose by 3-4 touchdowns in Columbus than them. That's what people are arguing in favor of, and the data supports my principle that the brand name school you would rather watch probably loses by a wide margin too.

I agree with the posts earlier that suggest they'll alter the rules again to create the invitational tournament that the tv executives most prefer. It's shameful. Because at the end of the day, we really aren't talking about the fans in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Who we are really talking about the football fans in Ames, Iowa, or Pullman, Washington, or Storrs, Connecticut, or Piscataway, NJ, or Winston Salem, NC... THAT is what makes up over 80% of your college football fans. P4 programs who aren't blue bloods or don't have the money to buy players from 120 other FBS schools. And there are so many supposed "football fans" out there just telling those people that they should have no hope or dream of ever even having a chance.

Eventually, those people are going to stop watching. And those people are going to stop going. And those people are going to stop caring. If you don't have any hope to ever have a seat at the table, what fun is the journey of the college football regular season if it just means you play 12 games, don't get "invited" to the CFP, and don't have a bowl game to go to because they have been eliminated? When we get to that point, and we will get to that point, many will yearn for what they supported going away.

[IUPNation]

Been a busy few weeks and haven't been able to read much, but just catching up on the discussion.

The general public outcry over the CFP selection, specifically over JMU and Tulane making the field, is quite alarming to me. And the direction this is all heading is pretty scary. I can appreciate that guys like Joel Klatt and Kirk Herbstreit are saying the quiet part that they deep down wish for out loud, but the number of average joe's who are echoing their sentiments is amazing. Keep in mind... We are fans. We aren't TV executives. We aren't boosters. We aren't people holding water for the networks (or at least we shouldn't be). You either like football or you don't. It's becoming pretty apparent that a lot of people don't like football when it's all said and done. I planned my whole day on Saturday around Army/Navy - because I like football. Kirk Herbstreit told Joey Galloway that he didn't know what to do with himself because there was no football. And I know he wrote a retraction because of the blowback, but he said what he said (and that's what he meant).

You can't create a world where you deny access to a championship for over half of the sport. And truthfully, I don't care who you'd rather see in the CFP over JMU or Tulane, or SMU last year, or whoever. It's not remotely relevant. There's no level of sport, athletics, or league anywhere that intentionally eliminates championship accessibility for over half of their participating members. As long as the odds might be, every other sport has clear parameters on what is necessary to reach the field to have a shot to win a championship. That means everyone has a shot.

It's upsetting that many of us would rather schools like JMU or Tulane be told they aren't deserving of an opportunity all because we'd rather see Tennessee lose by 3-4 touchdowns in Columbus than them. That's what people are arguing in favor of, and the data supports my principle that the brand name school you would rather watch probably loses by a wide margin too.

I agree with the posts earlier that suggest they'll alter the rules again to create the invitational tournament that the tv executives most prefer. It's shameful. Because at the end of the day, we really aren't talking about the fans in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Who we are really talking about the football fans in Ames, Iowa, or Pullman, Washington, or Storrs, Connecticut, or Piscataway, NJ, or Winston Salem, NC... THAT is what makes up over 80% of your college football fans. P4 programs who aren't blue bloods or don't have the money to buy players from 120 other FBS schools. And there are so many supposed "football fans" out there just telling those people that they should have no hope or dream of ever even having a chance.

Eventually, those people are going to stop watching. And those people are going to stop going. And those people are going to stop caring. If you don't have any hope to ever have a seat at the table, what fun is the journey of the college football regular season if it just means you play 12 games, don't get "invited" to the CFP, and don't have a bowl game to go to because they have been eliminated? When we get to that point, and we will get to that point, many will yearn for what they supported going away.

I agree with all of this 100%. I am glad Tulane and JMU made the playoffs.

I don't think 5 teams from the SEC deserve to make the field. Why are the Sooners there? BYU should be in that slot. They are the school that got punished for losing a conference title game.

I'd also say Duke should be in the playoffs for winning the conference and not the Miami Detention Center.

Why play conference title games if you aren't rewarded making them and winning them?

[IUP24]

I agree with all of this 100%. I am glad Tulane and JMU made the playoffs.

I don't think 5 teams from the SEC deserve to make the field. Why are the Sooners there? BYU should be in that slot. They are the school that got punished for losing a conference title game.

I'd also say Duke should be in the playoffs for winning the conference and not the Miami Detention Center.

Why play conference title games if you aren't rewarded making them and winning them?

I've subscribed (to a point) to the idea of creating more games of importance. I like football. I don't just like the big brands. So when USF and Tulane played in what was essentially a playoff game a month ago, I watched. Again, because I like football and think seeing teams playing in high leverage games is fun.

But what I've noticed is that all the same people who advocated for more games mattering are seemingly upset that teams they don't want to see in the CFP are playing in critical games that matter late in the season. And I think that's what has rubbed me the wrong way in this entire conversation. You don't get to pick and choose at your convenience. This is the world everybody wanted. More teams involved. More games that mattered. More interest and intrigue everywhere. You mostly have that now, and people are upset.

If you want to say that Iowa State and Cincinnati in early November (just picking two random teams) is effectively an elimination game, then you have to also recognize that Georgia/Tennessee or Ohio State/Michigan might be that too. We don't get to cherry pick which games are and are not quasi playoff games simply because of the logo on their helmet.

And I know that rubs people the wrong way, but so be it. I don't care if you'd rather watch the Food Network than Kennesaw State in the playoffs. Don't watch then. It just tells me you don't actually like football. And that's where I'm at with most of these people.