December 7, 2025 • 51 mins
The College Football Playoff field is officially set! In this special episode, we react to this year's playoff field, pick out the easiest pathways to the national championship, and debate the CFP Committee's logic for not penalizing Alabama and moving Miami ahead of Notre Dame
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the solid verbal Hell. For me, I'm a man,
I'm forty. I've heard so many players say, well, I
want to be happy. You want to be happy for
day at the State. Is that? Whoa whoam and Dan
and tie? Dan Rubinstein, we officially have a twelve team
(00:22):
college football playoff field. The Committee ESPN, you could argue,
the mouthpiece for the Committee decided that day we're going
to release the rankings after much fanfare. It's about one
twenty three pm Eastern time. We had originally scheduled to
do this one at five pm Eastern time. I needed
(00:44):
to get some stuff off of my chest. We will
get to that in just a second. If you are
just turning in, hit follow, hit subscribe so that you
do not miss any of our upcoming episodes or content.
Go back and listen to the content we dropped earlier
this morning, where we talk through what transpired on Championship Week,
the games of note, the storylines of Note, and so
(01:06):
on and so forth. In effect, this is a part
two to build on what we discussed late into the
evening Saturday night slash Sunday morning, Dan Rubinstein, we have
our field. The Committee revealed its results.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I'll flash it on the screen. Okay, we can talk
through what that means.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
We can talk through ideal pathways, we can talk through
really anything that is grinding our gears. I've got a
few things that I would like to discuss with you,
of course, But at present, here's where things stan. Indiana,
the undisputed number one team in college football, thirteen and zero,
knocked off Ohio State. They did exactly what we expected.
They flipped Indiana and Ohio State. It was a three
(01:49):
point game, thirteen to ten. Instead of Ohio State being one,
Indiana is now one, Ohio State is number two. Georgia
at three makes a lot of sense, as does Texas
Tech at number four, virtue of their respective conference championship
victories in the SEC and the Big Twelve. Once we
get through that initial field, the top four who get
(02:09):
first round bys, we talk about your Oregon Ducks holding
steady at number five, Ole Miss holding steady at number six,
Texas A and m ND Oklahoma also holding steady at
seven and eight. Interestingly enough, Alabama holding steady at number
nine despite a twenty one point loss in the SEC
(02:30):
championship game. We will get there in second half two
at number ten. It is Miami. The Hurricanes at the
gun get the nod over Notre Dame to grab that
final playoff spot. They are going to be your number
ten team in this tournament. And then to round out
the field, after much discussion about the ACC's place in
(02:51):
all of this, and especially with a five loss, ACC
champion Tulane gets the number eleven spot and James Addison
gets the number twelve spot. So we have two G
five teams that have found their way into this tournament field,
which I actually think is kind of cool. Good for
them to get this. Two coaches, by the way, that
(03:12):
are going to be going elsewhere after the playoffs, So
that is kind of its own subplot all together. Dan
Rubinstein the first team out, the Notre Dame fighting Irish
the second team out, the BYU Cougars. You can go
a little bit further down the line if you want to.
I think Texas was the next one up. For all
intentsive purposes here though, the graphic that we've got on
(03:34):
our screen represents the top fourteen teams. With respect to
how that translates to a bracket, You've got Oregon hosting
James Madison with the winner squaring off against Texas Tech.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I believe that's the Saturday night at seven thirty Eastern game.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yep, correct. The Friday night game is going to be
Oklahoma the eight hosting Alabama the nine, with the winner
getting the rights to square off against under feet at Indiana.
On the bottom side of the bracket, we've got number
six Ole miss playing host to Tulane. This is a
rematch of a forty five to ten game that we
saw earlier in the year. The winner of that one
(04:12):
is going to square off against Georgia and last, but
certainly not least, number seven Texas A and M playing
host to number ten Miami. The winner of that matchup
squares off against Ohio State Dan Ruvenstein. So we've got
a lot to discuss here. Why don't we start at
the very top though, because I think Indiana has deserved
(04:33):
as much Indiana one. I don't think there was as
much dispute over Indiana being the one. No, do we
agree with how they handled Ohio State in light of
that loss, dropping them only one spot down to number two?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, I mean Ohio State was twelve and er. It
was a hard fought game. It was very tight. It
was thirteen ten. It came down to, you know, Indiana
out playing them in the second half. Ohio State had
a couple opportunities late to tie it or take the lead,
and Indiana was able to hold on. Indiana proved itself
to be the clear numb one. And I'm fine with
as impressive as Georgia was yesterday, with Ohio State going
(05:06):
into their conference championship game having quitted themselves well at
least on defense.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I'm fine with them number two. Yeah. The remainder of
the top nine was also kept intact, right. I think
Texas Tech obviously belongs at number four. I think George
obviously belongs at number three. Any dispute on your end
with how they handled let me say the next group
of four teams. We won't talk about Alabama quite yet,
(05:35):
but okay, Oregon standing pad at five, We've got Ole
Miss at six, We've got Texas A and M at seven,
We've got Oklahoma at eight. I know Greg McElroy on
the ESPN broadcast had something to say about Texas A
and M being below Old Miss, maybe even below Oregon
in light of the season that they had. I did
find it a little bit strange that they would drop
A and M as much as they did after that
(05:56):
loss to Texas, but obviously still in the field, obviously
still hosting a first round playoff game. Not going to
say I have that big of a gripe with it.
They kind of kept it in state from a week ago,
so I think we've had ample time to digest that
right now. But you cool with that too, You're good
with that. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I mean, look, you're trying to understand what the committee
is thinking with keeping Texas A and M beneath Ole Miss,
and I guess the thinking in this specific scenario, if
they were what three before, is that Texas A and
M had a schedule that did not feature basically anybody
near the top other than Texas within the SEC. Their
best win came in week whatever two or three against
(06:38):
Notre Dame, and their control over a lot of those games,
whether it was against Arkansas, whether it was against South
Carolina late in the season, whether it was against I
believe Auburn was close, yes Auburn was sixteen to ten.
That they did not feel like Texas A and M
was as in control as I guess they thought Ole
Miss was within the SEC. Let's also remember ole Miss
(07:01):
barely be Washington State. This is not a perfect ole
Miss schedule. It's not a perfect ole Miss season. I think,
if anything, they just sort of looked at it as
a later season control issue from textas A and M.
I don't know if I fully agree, but it's hard
to make a strong argument in favor of text A
and M or overall Miss. It's just where you fall
in the margins. How do we feel about two G
(07:23):
five teams getting in? These are the rules everybody signed
up for, and it's not on these teams. It's not
on the committee. The committee had no choice with regard
to James Madison and Tulane. Obviously these aren't teams that
were even really on the fringe of the top twelve.
But this is what we signed up for. And the
(07:44):
committee didn't have the foresight to think a twenty twenty
five unicorn of a cop major conference champion duke could exist.
And that's on them. That's on you know, the conference commissioners,
not the committee. The Conference commissioners and those in charge
of the playoff structure. It's on them, and you sort
of reput you so. And here is the reaping part.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Here, it is We've had a bunch of people right
in about this. But if the ACC had a different
set of tiebreakers, if instead of common opponent's record, it
was committee ranking, Miami would be in. Notre Dame would
be in as well, and maybe that would benefit the
ACC down the line. Maybe that could be a change
that we see in the immediate future. I don't know,
(08:28):
but that is what allowed Up to get into this
game in the first place, to win the ACC with
five losses and put the ACC you know, they have
their conference champion, who's not going to be part of
this because of the weird tiebreakers they had. Miami is
going to be part of it. We can get to
that next. But that is one aspect I think of
(08:50):
the system right now that I would look at and
the immediate short term as something that we're going to
see patched up before long, because I don't think they
want that. I do think if it weren't for, you know,
a really solid Miami team, that the ACC would have
any reps in this at all.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
The only other thing I would tag on with relate
as it relates to the G five is the committee,
as you're going to mention, is just going to do
what it wants, and they could have just ranked Duke
ahead of James Madison because they want.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
If they had wanted to write, they.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Could have ranked Duke ahead of James Madison, who obviously
was going to be behind Tulane. Now, James Madison was ranked
last week, but whatever was ranked last week again, you're
about to get to this doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
It just doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So the committee, with easy justification could have said, oh, yeah,
we're putting Duke at like number twenty one in James
Madison's number twenty two. And that's just sort of how
we failed with a win over a top twenty Virginia,
I think, you know the best of like. They could
have used garbled language to defend putting Duke ahead. They
didn't in that instance. I mean, why stop now? Why
(09:55):
stop now?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Dan? We've doing it on say time? Why stop now?
That's what I'm saying. It could have just done it.
I don't know. Congratulations to both Tulane and JMU. I
will be rooting like hell for both of those teams.
It is a great story for both of those schools.
It sucks that both coaches are now leaving, but at
a minimum, it's a really nice accomplishment for them. They
(10:18):
both had terrific seasons and I look forward to having
them in there. As somebody who has argued for a
long time that if there were all technically going to
be on the FBS level, you should at least extend
the olive branch, do something to include all of the conferences,
And by having both schools in here, I think it
does achieve some level of inclusion. So I'm happy about that.
(10:40):
I think from a general principled standpoint that I've always
had here, it's fine.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I don't know if I'm looking forward to forward to
these specific matchups, like I.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Mean, you're an Oregon fan, you're definitely looking forward to
these specific matchups.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
No, but I benefect your team greatly. It benefits the
team I root for. But in terms of just like
a pure competitive standpoint, it would be hard to get
up for if James Madison weren't playing Oregon, if JMU
or Tulane were playing you know, Oklahoma or Texastack or whoever.
Like you're just like, well, that's a different kind of matchup,
and you hope that it's more competitive than it seems
at the moment. I don't know what the early line
(11:13):
on Oregon James Madison is is it in the twenties?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Am? I might be one hundred and twenty. I haven't
seen it yet, but.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Either way, I am good in spirit with making this
inclusive at like the peril and at the cost of
keeping out like a nine to three team that really
didn't look like a playoff team.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
So it's fine, all right? Can we talk about the
other stuff? Now? Let's there are a couple bones of
contention over here in solid verbal East, maybe out there
in solid verbal West, maybe all throughout the verballerhood with
how the committee handled the remainder of this field, and
by that I am referring to number nine Alabama, number
(11:56):
ten Miami, and in this case number thirteen Notre Dame.
And I'll even want BYU in there at number fourteen.
There are a couple different things that we can talk
about here now. I think it goes without saying that
the committee going the entire month of November ranking Notre
Dame ahead of Miami, only to put Miami ahead of
(12:16):
Notre Dame in the eleventh hour because BYU was docked
for losing its conference championship game, which they didn't do
for Alabama. By the way, because how dare we do
something like that to an SEC champer an SEC championship
contender anyway, That's neither here nor there. We'll get to that.
But now, because we have Miami and Notre Dame back
to back, this is the logic they use to move
Miami ahead of Notre Dame and to give them the
(12:37):
final spot. Everybody listening to this knows that I am
a Notre Dame fan. I am incredibly disappointed that Notre
Dame did not get the NOD after being fed for
a month straight this nonsense, that the committee valued what
Notre Dame was doing, that the committee wasn't necessarily comparing
them against Miami, they were comparing them against the likes
(12:59):
of Alabama and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Right, and that they were saying like it was one
hundred year at check. By the way, SEC Athletic Director
university executive voice of the College Football Committee, after the
previous voice was let go for allegedly trying to start
a fight with an active tight end on his.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Own team, love it, allegedly love.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It the defense there in his words, I am paraphrasing
his words, so maybe not his exact words was we
weren't comparing them. Miami had just lost two of three,
so we were weighing where they were at that moment,
so we weren't thinking about their whole season record. We
only started doing that now, which is of course a
bullshit continue.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I am disappointed as a fan, but I would say,
out of principle, head to head should count for something. Agree.
What is confusing to me is why it took so
long to get here. And this is not just a
Notre Dame or a Miami thing. This is a college
football fan question that I think is very real, regardless
(14:01):
of fandom. Miami and Notre Dame played first week of
the year. We've had a lot of time to digest
that game. It was close. Notre Dame is in a
much different spot now. I'm going to recuse myself from
deciding who I would pick if the two teams played tomorrow, Right,
but head to head should count, and so, at least
(14:21):
as just a principled point of view, putting Miami in
over Notre Dame. Though I am disappointed, I understand that logic. Sure.
What I have issue with is why it took so
long to get here. I understand they're doing a show.
I understand they've got commercial inventory they would like to sell,
but why it took this long to kind of come
to that realization and made everything else going on around
(14:43):
college football. They could have saved us all a lot
of time just by saying that, yeah, we're gonna actually
give them the benefit of the doubt. Here, Miami had
worse losses than Notre Dame. Okay, and Miami definitely stumbled
in the middle part of their season. They have looked
very good as of late, and I am happy for
Miami that they got in while simultaneously being crushed that
my team didn't. But I get that point of view,
(15:04):
I really do. I just don't understand the timing of it.
I agree. What I take greater issue with is these
verbal gymnastics that they have tried to put hunter year
check through to explain how they penalized some conference championship
losers and not others. Right. Okay, and I pointed this
out a bunch of times on X The everything app
(15:26):
over the last twenty four hours, But if you take
last year as an example, every team that played in
a conference championship game and lost, all of these cases
were by one score. All of those teams without exception,
dropped a few spots in the polls. Penn State dropped
the spot, Texas dropped the spot. SMU dropped two spots.
(15:47):
All those games were closed. It's a three point game,
and eight point game and a three point game, respectively.
Alabama played in a conference championship game. Not only did
they pick up a third loss, but they lost that
game by twenty one points. Fact checked true. They did
not move an inch an inch in this latest poll, buddy.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
They moved up by barely beating Auburn, who I don't
believe has a winning record last week, and with an
interim coach sneaking by Auburn moved them up and Notre
Dame destroying whoever it was Stanford last week unchanged or
moved them down?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Right? What about BYU Dan So, by that same logic,
if you're going to get crushed in a conference championship game,
why does BYU then get docked? Right? They move BYU
out of their spot, which moves Miami up, which puts
them next to Notre Dame, which gives them right to
(16:42):
move them then ahead of Notre Dame because of the
head to ted tiebreak, which I'm not really arguing. Right,
I understand, but why is it not good enough for
BYU but it is good enough for Alabama to kind
of keep them where they're at. You know, I'm listen.
We talk about a lot of fun stuff on this show. Yeah,
(17:02):
make a lot of dumb jokes. It's not for everybody.
I get that. And sometimes we put weird theories out
into the ether, and ninety five percent of the time
that is all tongue in cheek. Even we don't believe it,
it's just fun. After seeing what they did here and
how they handled Alabama, this to me represents about as
(17:26):
tangible a proof as we are going to get that
there is some kind of SEC bias going on. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry. They lost by twenty one points and they're
not going to move an inch. I get that. You
don't want to upset the balance of the force with
respect to conference championship games. Everybody in that room probably
cares about conference championship games and not sending them the
(17:50):
way of the dinosaur. Great. Yeah, they dropped everybody last
year by at least one spot. They dropped teams this
year by one spot. Everybody except the SEC team in Alabama,
who By the way, even Kirk curve Street himself said
on the broadcast that they've been leaking oil, and damn straight,
they've been leaking oil. Because I watched that game yesterday,
(18:12):
they didn't belong in the same field as Georgia. I'm
not even an arguing point. Shut up. I'm not even
arguing that Alabama should be completely out of the playoff field.
I think Alabama is still a very good team, but
they're inconsistency with how they handle these conference championship games
and the conferences involved in the conference championship games is
(18:35):
something that I have a major issue with. Sure. So
this has been an embarrassment the full way through for
this committee from the guy who runs it getting kicked
off it, or I guess stepping aside right on through
their logic for at the eleventh hour, moving one team
above another, how they handled conference championship games for Alabama
versus or I guess I should say the SEC versus
(18:57):
everybody else. And as you said to me, and I
think rightfully so before we went on the air here, congratulations.
You are witnessing the final year of the college football
Playoff Selection Committee and can be a moment too freaking soon.
Is there anything else that there will be? But go ahead,
you can talk now, Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So look the cynic as you bring up the SEC
bias thing, the cynic is just like, look, the thing
that can't suffer within this sport is anything that affects television,
and not having major matchups in September and not having
a conference championship game would affect television. And so these
conference championships need to be important kind of. And so
(19:38):
that's why the BYU thing matters. The explanation was they
lost without seeming more competitive than they were the first
time when they lost in Lubbock, and so we ding
them for that. Alabama went five straight quarters without scoring
against Georgia. Listen again, Alabama did not score in the
second half of a win. It's good to win, you
(20:00):
should reward the win. And then they started this game
out yesterday not scoring for the first three quarters.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, and five straight quarters not really getting a fifty
yard line for like three quarters. Right, And you know what,
if you're looking at the totality of the resume, if
you're looking at head to head, if you're looking at
what Alabama accomplished during this season, I think the correct
way to look at. You know, the conclusion you should
come to with Alabama is there right there with Auburn
(20:28):
and South Carolina. I don't know if there's a single
Alabama fan, especially if you look at the comments on
all of the game recaps that were popping up online
last night, they were all, We're not going to make
the playoff and frankly, we don't deserve to. That's every
single comment. That is the conclusion that Alabama fans, after
(20:48):
watching the Georgia game came to. Now, every Alabama fan
is not the same.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
They are on the level with South Carolina and Auburn,
and a little bit less than Oklahoma, which I guess
technically are in this rankings right. They lost Oklahoma at
home in like a pathetic offensive, showing stop me if
you've heard this before. Alabama losing in a pathetic offensive,
showing like, clearly this offense didn't work the back half
of the schedule, so they're not dinged for a conference
(21:15):
championship game, with a history of being dinged for conference
championship games. They move up after an unimpressive win against
Auburn and the case against Notre Dame and the case
against Miami are pretty clear, right, Yeah, he los is.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I'm disappointed, but I get that that that logically right,
I get that, And I again, it's one thing to
be disappointed. It's another thing to say that it's a
bad faith argument. I don't think it's a bad faith argument.
I think the way that they presented it at least now,
I mean, it took them forever to get here, but
at least the way that they presented it. Though I
am disappointed, makes a ton of sense. These teams we
(21:49):
thought were very comparable. They were comparable in Week one,
it was a three point game. They looked at all
the stats, they were basically the same. We're going to
break the time by giving it to the team that
won on the field. Great, that makes sense to me.
That's logic. That's logic. That is logic. Why don't we
use that across the board.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
It's also, as we've talked about, and we've mentioned, if
week one, if labor day weekends late August does matter
that much that it is the most important tie breaker
when you're comparing similar schedules. Obviously Miami with a full
ACC schedule, Notre Dame with a partial ACC schedule, Florida
State played Alabama that weekend, and so if you compare
(22:31):
those three teams, nobody had that level a loss no
as disappointing at moments as SMU and Louisville war from Miami.
Notre Dame had a loss to Miami and a loss
to Texas A and M. The case against Notre Dame
to me, aside from the head to head loss, but
just more broadly speaking, is Notre Dame has more control
(22:54):
over their schedule and they don't play in a conference
championship game. Sidebar, If it's an advantage to not play
in a conference championship game because it can affect you,
why can't it affect Alabama?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
That's right, So there's the sidebar there.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
No, the case against Notre Dame is you have more
control over your schedule and so sometimes you can schedule
teams on neutral sites, or you can schedule G five
teams like Notre Dame has over the years when they
schedule you know, the Service academies, what have you and
the Service. The Navy team they played this year was
good that you need to exert like a terrific amount
(23:29):
of force, and Notre Dame did. But also, if you
don't play a lot of highly ranked teams. If you
don't play a lot of top twenty teams like the
best of the SEC schedules have, then you have to
perform in those games. And Notre Dame didn't just lose
to Texas A and M. They gave up forty one
points at home with their strength eventually becoming their defense.
(23:50):
But they got run through and around and over and
buy against Texas A and M. And they lost to Miami.
Close it lost by one point to Texas A and M.
On A botched yesterday, Okay, so I'll tell you. I
hear you. They would have tied with the extra point,
and they gave up a game winning touchdown to a
tight end who never catches balls.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
No, that's fair. And you know we could say the
same about Texas A and M giving up forty points
of course against a Notre Dame offense that at that
when your season was not fully developed. So I get it,
I get it. I think it comes ways. But what
I'm saying won that game, so fair.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Enough, the margin for Notre Dame is less because you
can take a look at a team I agree with
that that that plays in a conference and say they
have no control over their conference schedule, right that sometimes
it's going to be a murderer's role like what Oklahoma's
was this year, or Texas is sometimes or was this year,
and sometimes it's just going to be a fortunate schedule
like we had with you know, the ACC championship teams
(24:45):
with Duke in Virginia. I'm sure I agree with so,
but I'm saying that's the case against Notre Dame. I
just think people are making the wrong case right now
because Notre Dame themselves played like a playoff team after
those two losses, and those are good losses and if
your losses have to matter, just like wins have to matter.
The thing that really annoyed me about the Alabama thing
(25:07):
was these again this is Hunter Yeerchek's paraphrased words, is
we looked at the totality of alabama schedule so obviously
including the worst loss to a team that hasn't won
a road game in two years, and we said, you know,
they also have a pretty incredible win that they were
able to beat the SEC champion on the road in September,
And the only reason that Georgia is the SEC champion
(25:29):
is because they beat Alabama literally yesterday, forty four minutes ago.
And so that tells me and my pea brain that
the committee just thought to themselves, we can't put in
the three, four, five and leave out the number two,
even though you definitely can. They lost to a dumb,
(25:52):
dumb acc team to start the season a very important
time per the committee.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Dan, that's not even the thing though. Yeah, it's not
even about leaving Alabama out of the playoff. It's about
some conference championship games meaning something, meaning enough to drop BYU.
And it's about others that were almost as lopsided, not
having any bearing whatsoever on the rankings, not at all.
(26:20):
They didn't drop a lick nothing. And you know what,
they didn't even think about dropping them a lick because
it's al a frickin' Bama. I agree, they had their
mind made up before this week. Shame on the committee.
What do you call them? Dented avocados on avocados? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Look, and then so then the question becomes, Okay, if
it's a thirty five to seven loss, what's the threshold
for saying Alabama is not performing like a playoff team yesterday?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Dan? What is the impetus for any of these teams
any of these teams that are in the top twelve
to even play there once in a conference championship game.
If it's completely meaningless, completely independent of the final score,
what is the motivation to take your ones out there
and risk them getting hurt? I agree.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I think Kirby Smart and Kaylin de Borr should have
gone to some sort of like Cracker Barrel or Chili's
or something and had a handshake agreement, let's both pay
a fine and not play, or just play our bunch
of our walk on.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
This is old like FIFA World Cup BS, where two
teams could come to a gentleman's agreement like, ah, maybe
we just won't score and then we both go through. Right.
It wasn't quite that, But what's the point? What's the point?
They want to have conference championship games with real meaning, right,
That is what I am getting from this. But at
(27:40):
the same time, the conference ship games don't really have
any real meaning. They just sort of like them because
it's an extra game they could sell into. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
By the way, this, to be clear, is a ninth
SEC conference game for these teams. This is not some
sort of crazy extra game that no teams would have
to like This is a ninth game. The Big Ten
and the Big twelve already played nine conference games and
then play a tenth in their conference championship game. So
this is not an above and beyond moment for both
(28:08):
Alabama and Georgia and whoever plays in the SEC championship game.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
This is not.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
This is merely a ninth game that the SEC is
eventually going to anyway. But it's a it's a pretty
pathetic showing.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Like the case for Alabama is they were good for
like three and a half weeks in October.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
They're like, okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
I just I'm always going to be a believer that
all weeks are not created equal and seasons are living,
breathing things. And Georgia just won without two of their
best receivers and their starting center and managed to find
a way to look like Georgia. Georgia didn't look like
Georgia the week before against Georgia Tech and managed to
find a way to win that game, Like this is
what excellent teams and worthy teams do, and Alabama just
(28:53):
over and over again is sort of getting a thumb
on the scale and this is our sport.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I am not arguing that Alabama should have been left
out entirely. I am not making that case, but I
am saying we need to come to an understanding. Either
conference championship games matter and can have can have some
penalty right if you lose in dramatic fashion, or they don't.
(29:25):
We can't have it both ways, because this is now
a situation where we had it both ways. It worked
against BYU, worked right against BYU, worked against other teams
that lost, worked against Ohio State, they would right they dropped. One.
Doesn't work for Alabama though, because it's our precious sec beautiful. Yeah. Absolutely, anyway, listen,
(29:47):
I'm gonna get off my high horse now. Of course,
welcome everybody's feedback. I'm not trying to dunk too hard,
but I feel very passionately about this. I think it's
a joke. I think it's a joke specifically with regard
to this. I get the Notre Dame in Miami thing.
I am crazy disappointed. I've said that ten times now,
but I get that. I get that I wanted both
(30:08):
teams in but that wasn't going to happen. But the
way that they handled this conference championship thing, I think
is an absolute farce.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Do you think there would have been a number if
they lost fifty two to seven?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
No, no, you don't. No, it's unbelievable. It's great. It really.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
By the way, once again, tinfoil hat Dan here. They
started the show with the Alabama messaging.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Oh they did it was they did? I was just
going to bring that up. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
It was an Alabama anchor tossing to an Alabama quarterback
and then via satellite a legendary Alabama coach who is
a paid consultant with an office on campus at Alabama.
And at this point, I it is my belief if
you are taking a paycheck from ESPN, I think you're compromised.
I just there is something about watching this coverage that
(30:58):
screams like if McDon donald's had a TV network and
had an annual award for like, here is the best
milkshake or milkshake adjacent product, and it goes too and
we're gonna go around this roundtable. We're gonna have the Hamburgler,
We're gonna have grimis. Everybody's gonna weigh in. I think
you got to give it to mcfluury, and everybody's like,
I think mcfluury is the choice and you're like, Okay, cool,
(31:19):
I think you're compromised. If you take any money from
ESPN and you weigh in on the college football playoff,
you're just wearing a badge. That's all you're doing. I mean,
Bill Connolly is compromised. I just see this in the.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Bill Connolly helped to decide, right, he helped to decide
the Mountain West Championship participants.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Bill Connolly is compromised. He is, and you know what,
he's the best. He is the best. But at the
same time, if he went on the air, and I
believe in my heart of hearts that Bill Connolly's heart
is pure, but if he went on and be like,
well you have to consider though.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
A ESPN I would Okay, let's flash the bracket up there, now,
flash the Brackett's Let's get away from this in a second.
Let's celebrate my teams that are in this playoff field. Yes,
let's not talk about the method anymore. There's going to
be plenty of time to go over that again, I'm sure. Yeah,
(32:21):
here is where things stand right now. Again, we talk
through the first round matchups, who the winners of those
first round matchups are going to square off against if
they make it through into the quarterfinals. As you look
across the twelve team field here and these matchups, is
there a particular path that jumps out to you immediately?
(32:42):
And I'm not just talking the first round, but is
there a pathway through to the semifinals that you think
rises above the others? Because I have a few thoughts
on this as well, but I want to get your
take first, since I've been dominating here by yelling into
this microphone.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
I think Indiana's path is pretty good. Good Honestly, where
are they playing that game?
Speaker 1 (33:03):
By the way, I believe that's in the Rose Bowl.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
That's that would make sense. That's in the Rose bul
So any and it gets to play in the Rose
Bowl against either Oklahoma or Alabama. I don't hate that
path because I just I think Indiana is so buttoned
up right with what they were able to do play
to play on both sides of the ball. I don't
hate that path playing in the Rose Bowl. Again, though,
it's how you feel about that all that extra time
because they won't be playing Today's December seventh, so that's
(33:27):
what twenty four to twenty five days away. Yeah, yeah,
So that's a that's been three and a half weeks
of you know, going home for the holidays or you know,
it's just it's an a rhythmic experience figuring out portal
stuff behind the scenes, figuring out higher stuff for all
these you know, teams that have the buy, it's just
a long time. I think Ohio State's path is pretty
nice and Oregon's path. Look, you get your a three
(33:49):
touchdown favorite, and it's not great to play against Texas
Tech defense. That is a brutal, brutal ask but it's
across the country for Oregon. It's a good distance for Texas.
Texas Tech, I imagine, is going to be just unbelievably
just hyped up to be in that matchup. But I
don't hate Oregon getting the Texas Tech offense in this one.
(34:10):
And Oregon, weirdly enough, I already looked a little bit ahead,
and you know, maybe James Madison beats Oregon. Oregon has
struggled in the red zone on defense with allowing touchdowns,
and Texas Tech has struggled on offense scoring touchdowns in
the red zone, So that's like an early read there.
So no, I think in terms of upsets, Oregon probably
in that five to four matchup, if we get it,
(34:30):
has a nice path, and then Georgia ole Miss. I
just have no idea what to expect from what ole
Miss looks like with Pete Golding and Charlie Weis Junior
is calling the offense. There, I'm not putting them through
over tu Lane immediately. But they did beat Tulane by
a comfortable margin this season. Yeah, and Tulan has their
own distraction with their own coach leaving. So I think
(34:52):
the best first round matchup is probably Miami A and
M purely from A like, Okay, so we both beat
Notre Dame. How are we going to play each other?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah? Well that's interesting in its own right, you know
what I mean, They've got I think that's the best
game in round one. Yeah, So, to answer your question
from earlier, the winner of the A and M Miami
game plays Ohio State and the Cotton Bowl. So perhaps
a bit of a home game for Texas A and M,
although it's always a home game when Ohio State's involved, right,
they travel Jerry World Cotton Bowl, Arlington. Yeah, that's right,
(35:23):
your Oregon Ducks. Should they pull through and knock off
James Madison, that will be in the Orange Bowl. Right
as I mentioned a minute ago, the Indiana game versus
the winner of the Home in Alabama is going to
take place in the Rose Bowl. And then the final
quarter final matchup between Georgia and whoever wins between Ole
Miss and Tulane that will be in the Sugar Bowl.
So if Tulane gets through, that'd be fun. I think
(35:44):
the path that jumps out to me initially is the
Oregon path, and this is something that I talked through
with you Ian to go now. It feels like forever ago,
but Oregon is going to be a healthy favorite. I
haven't seen by how much over James Madison. Maybe we
can pull that up here as we're talking through all
these matchups. I think Oregon matches up particularly well with
Texas Tech. I get what you're saying about Tech Tech Defense.
(36:06):
Tech Tech defense has been incredible for sure, possibly America's best.
I am not enamored with that offense, and so I
actually see that as a rather low scoring game, more
of a defensive struggle between those two. And I've got
Oregon making it through into the semifinal. Yep, no knock
on Texas Tech. Forgive me. I just don't trust Baron
Morton in a high leverage spot like that. So I've
(36:29):
got Oregon making it through into the semifinals. I've got
Oklahoma over Alabama in that first matchup. Again, that's a
rematch we saw that one earlier, was a close game
earlier in the year. I think Oklahoma pulls another one
out over Alabama, and I think Indiana moves through into
the semifinals for a rematch against Oregon. On the other
(36:50):
side of the bracket, I've got Old Miss over Tu Lane.
I've got Georgia over Old Miss.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Sorry, once again, where would that game be Georgia Ole Miss.
That would be in the Sugar Bowl, So that would
be in New Orleans. Inside we would have Jerry World. Inside,
we'd have the Rose Bowl. Likely good weather. We'd have
South Florida, likely good weather, though sogginess is on the table.
I like Georgia over Ole Miss.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I like Georgia over a lot of teams right now,
to be honest with you, with the way that they've
been playing, They're one of these teams that has taken
a quantum leap here second half of the season, and
that culminated with an SEC championship over Alabama yesterday, Georgia
right now again the three seed. I've got them through
to the semi finals. I've got Texas A and M
over Miami, And I am a bit on the fence
(37:38):
about Texas A and M versus Ohio State. If I'm
being real with you, I really like this Texas A
and M team.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Well, it's a matter of which one shows up when. Yeah,
I really like this Texas A and M team.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
My inclination is still to go with Ohio State, but
I could be swayed off of that. I think for me,
that's the toughest part of this bracket to project forward.
But gun in my head right now, I probably go
Ohio State. Okay, fair enough. So.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
One of the interesting things in looking at these teams
who are playing is the recency of interesting, big, meaningful wins,
Like Oregon has won in usc not a playoff team,
but a decent win at home. Alabama doesn't have one.
Oklahoma has a pretty good Alabama obviously. Ole Miss has
(38:33):
decent wins though recently. I don't know if I'm missing
anything with ole Miss recently, just in terms of how
we're playing. Obviously they're dealing with off the field stuff.
You know, the beat Florida South Carolina. The Oklahoma game
was I think before Halloween, so they haven't really played
a tough opponent recently. Alabama hasn't performed well, Miami hasn't
played anybody in a long time. You know, I'm depending
(38:55):
on how you feel about Pitt. I guess maybe that's
disrespectful to Pitt and Texas. A and m has not
beaten a good in quite some time. So the recency
of results is just interesting to me in terms of, like,
how accurately can we gauge, you know, where this team
is right now? I think it's all over the place.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
I think you'd be hard pressed to pick anyone at
this point other than Indiana period. Yeah, period, full stop.
I mean they look absolutely legit. Their defensive showing against
Ohio State on Saturday night was what stood out the
most to me. To be able to win a couple
different ways, right, Yeah, To be able to win with
(39:36):
your back to the wall, needing a miracle drive on
the road in Happy Valley emerging victorious, or to be
in a bit of a defensive slugfest on a neutral
site against a team that has owned the conference now
for you know, a good chunk of time at least
if they haven't been winning the conference title, they've been
winning national championships, or it's Ohio State, they're always in
(39:58):
the hunt. So to get a win like that in
the manner that they did, basically to play physical football,
go toe to toe with Ohio State and win that
one by three. This is a team that can beat
you a multitude of different ways. And I'm not sure
I feel much differently about a rematch between them and
Oregon should it come to pass, because Indiana showed me
something in that game against Ohio State.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
By the way, this in terms of what this year's
bracket looks like in the old old system, Indiana's your
national champion, right, lone undefeated team crown them in the BCS.
We're getting likely what Indiana Georgia right in this championship
game without like a huge argument made for like Texas
(40:40):
Tech or Oregon. In the four team system, you have
a Texas Tech Oregon conversation. Oregon, I guess has the
better loss but didn't make their conference championship game, and
Texas Tech, you know, dominated their best their their best
opponent twice in BYU and won their conference championship game.
So that's an interesting conversation to have. But like, it's
(41:00):
not crazy to have a Texas Tech, Georgia, Ohio State
Indiana playoff. Like people will be like, all right, yeah,
those are the four well, and it's just I'm really
hoping we have good interesting matchups here. But how we
got here I think was pretty screwy. Again with a
committee made up of dented avocados, and yes, Buster Onney compromised,
Mark Messier compromised, take your pick, they're all compromised.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I would welcome anyone's feedback out there who's got something
to say. Jessica Mendoza, you compromised. You can either write
in sliverbo at gmail dot com, hit us up in
the comments, hit us up in the chat. We're going
to have ample time to go through and discuss these matchups,
look at point spreads once they're a little bit more settled,
(41:44):
and of course go through the feedback that we get
from the verballer hood on just the manner in which
they got to these twelve teams.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
But do you think, by the way, yeah, just because
you're a notre dame human, do you think this would
this a the beginning of a case for Notre Dame
to join a conference. Notre Dame is demolished in the
ACC if they're playing obviously Virginia or Duke in this
championship game, and they would or they would have an
(42:13):
opportunity if the tiebreakers were different, to play against Miami.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Once again, I feel like we get to this moment
every so often where we're like, Aha, this is the
thing that's gonna do it.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah, and it might just be a rare year both.
It seems that like ten and two for Notre Dame
is largely going to be good enough.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Often, I think it is far more likely that they
expand the playoff to fourteen or sixteen teams than Notre
Dame joins a conference in the short term to give
themselves potentially a leg up to get into this college
football playoff field. You know, part of me wonders if
they were in the Big Ten but did not qualify
(42:54):
for a conference championship game, same record, Big Ten schedule,
would we have felt differently about the fighting Irish. I
know it's popular to make fun of Notre Dame for
being independent. I've gotten it probably about a thousand times
already today. Well, they should join a conference like a
real team. Okay, well, if they were in a conference,
(43:15):
if they played a big ten schedule and they still
went ten and two, maybe with a similar strength of schedule,
would people have felt differently about Notre Dame in this case.
My hunch is yes, because they'd be in a conference
and they'd have that label. But in all practicality, it
might not have made that much of a difference in
terms of the underlying numbers. So I don't know. I
(43:36):
just don't think it's likely. With how dead set determined
they are to remain independent. It is so much a
part of their identity as a program on the football side.
I know that's not ubiquitous across all of Notre Dame's programs,
but it is such a big part of who they
are and who they want to be. Now, if we've
(43:57):
got a twelve team field next year and the same
thing happens, if this happens a couple times over, then
it's a conversation. Because they are investing heavily in this
football program. Marcus Freeman is clearly a name that is
in demand, and I think at some point, yeah, maybe
we could we get to that moment where it truly
does make more sense, if only to help this program
(44:20):
get back to the level of winning a national championship.
But I think this taken in a vacuum is probably
not enough. And being so, they have a vote in
that room, and being so, it seems like there's already
a lot of momentum on expanding the playoff, albeit nobody
knows how. I think that is the more likely outcome
because if this is a sixteen team field, even if
it's a fourteen team field, Notre Dame gets in easily.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
I agree. I look, it's just how the committee evaluates
things is just going to change day to day, and
so doing anything dramatic is pretty silly because the committee
will have no idea how it feels about it on
Tuesday as it compares to Thursday. And you you know,
you can say, you know, Notre Dame should have won
those big games. Miami should have beaten SMU, Miami should
(45:05):
have beaten Louisville, didn't matter, right, they're in a conference,
didn't matter. But they won the head to head game
in August, and that apparently is is the thing, and
I think head to head should matter. But if you
take in the totality of it, it's just team to
team situation a situation. It's not an easy job. Let's
be clear, No, it isn't.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
I don't envy having that position, And I don't mean
to imply that everybody in that room has a hidden
agenda or anything crazy like. No, I don't think that's
the key. I think these are a lot of people
who love college football want to be part of the process.
So that is admirable, But it's just very, very frustrating
from the outside in if you are not a fan
(45:46):
of Alabama, even if you are a fan of the SEC. Yeah,
to look at how this is treated inconsistently across conferences
with respect to these conference championship games right there truly
is no impetus to go in there and win. What
is the point of having them? Right Like Greg McElroy
(46:06):
talked about this speaking of Alabama voices in the room
about how the committee set a precedent last year for
not wanting to penalize teams that lost conference championship games.
They don't want teams to fall out of the playoff
field as a result of losing a conference championship game.
But they did fall. But all those teams did fall
by a spot or two. So the fact that this
(46:27):
loss by Alabama was way worse than any of those
games and they didn't move an inch, right, I don't know,
that doesn't do much to emphasize the value of conference
championship games either. No, not at all. They were sort
of damned if they didn't. Damned if they didn't. It's
in fairness to the committee. I mean, there was not
a good choice here. But this inconsistency, I think is
(46:51):
going to be a real issue, and I don't expect
people are going to be talking any less about it
moving forward, because especially now as we're talking about banning
the playoff field, I think it even further degrades the
value of conference championship games. And you know, we will
probably arrive organically at this moment where everybody just kind
of throws them to the wayside, and maybe we go
(47:13):
more the direction of what Tony Petiti's been saying on
the Big Ten side of things, which we should just
have playing games to determine who gets in from our
conference and go with that instead. I'm not crazy about
any of this, mind you, but this inconsistency, combined with
the fact that they already want to expand this thing,
I think has taken us to a point where championship
games kind of go bye bye.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Every quote will make more sense. And I don't know
if there's a find and replaced function you can use
in your chrome, in your safari whatever. Every Playoff Committee
quote will make more sense if instead of a period,
you add a comma and buy and large. We looked
at this and we felt it was important that we
grade on this rubric Comma by and large, right, it's
(47:58):
when they feel like applying, where they feel like applying.
And I cannot stress enough that the chair of the
committee went on ESPN. Owners of the college football playoff right,
went on ESPN and with a straight face, sold America
on the idea of what Alabama did yesterday somehow was
(48:23):
more impressive because they had a win earlier over the
team that just put them in a locker. It is
somehow good actually that Alabama lost yesterday because it improved
their best win. That kind of backwards logic is what
gets us to this insanely silly moment, Dan.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Rubisin, why don't we leave it there. We appreciate everybody
who tuned in to watch this live. We went a
little bit earlier than expected because I was spitting mad.
I put on a collar shirt for the occasion. Though
I was excited about this broadcast, asked, I wish for
a different outcome, But that's me speaking as a fan.
I think everybody knows where I stand on this and
(49:07):
some of the inconsistencies that really got me going. I
think everybody knows the same about you. So we would
welcome anybody's feedback against sliverble at gmail dot com. We've
comments wherever you can be at YouTube, be at Spotify.
Many podcast apps out there allow you to do that now,
so we read all of them. We don't always have
a chance to respond to all of them, but we
do read all of them. We got a lot of
them coming in, especially this time of year. If those
(49:29):
don't work for you, hit us up on social media.
We would love to hear from you. As I like
to say, just don't be a dick. Okay, be nice
about it. We're all in this because we love college football.
You welcome your tack.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Don't email in digital do that is.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
That Morgan Freeman sing diary diarrhea? Yeah, okay, don't do that.
That's other than that though, That's okay. We've got our
field of twelve. We will have plenty of time to
debate where it goes next. We will talk through bowl
matchups on one of our upcoming episodes. We still do
need to talk about Penn State hiring Matt Campbell. There
(50:04):
has been a lot that is going on in the
college football world. We also need to go through signing Day.
We'll bring our friend Brandon Hoffman on at some point
here over the next few episodes as well. So just
because the regular season and conference championship week is over,
we've got playoffs, We've got news. We got a bunch
of stuff going. This is the new December in college football.
(50:28):
News has not ceased to exist at all. Make sure
you hit follower subscribes that you don't miss any of
those episodes. We're going to do our best to get
through all that. Yes, Forballers dot Com is where you
can go if you want to support what Dan and
I do. We're going to be launching a playoff game,
you know it as Bowl Bingo. We played it last year,
everybody loved it. We're going to do that again, So
(50:48):
stay tuned for more information. If you want to get
in on the action, compete for fabulous prizes against the birballerhood.
In the meantime though, for myself Ty Hildenbrandt, for that
beautiful gentleman over there, Dan Rubinstein. Thank you as always
for tuning in, for supporting, for downloading, for listening, for
just helping us through these interesting times in college football
and in the meantime, as always, stay soft peace,
Welcome to the solid verbal Hell. For me, I'm a man,
I'm forty. I've heard so many players say, well, I
want to be happy. You want to be happy for
day at the State. Is that? Whoa whoam and Dan
and tie? Dan Rubinstein, we officially have a twelve team
(00:22):
college football playoff field. The Committee ESPN, you could argue,
the mouthpiece for the Committee decided that day we're going
to release the rankings after much fanfare. It's about one
twenty three pm Eastern time. We had originally scheduled to
do this one at five pm Eastern time. I needed
(00:44):
to get some stuff off of my chest. We will
get to that in just a second. If you are
just turning in, hit follow, hit subscribe so that you
do not miss any of our upcoming episodes or content.
Go back and listen to the content we dropped earlier
this morning, where we talk through what transpired on Championship Week,
the games of note, the storylines of Note, and so
(01:06):
on and so forth. In effect, this is a part
two to build on what we discussed late into the
evening Saturday night slash Sunday morning, Dan Rubinstein, we have
our field. The Committee revealed its results.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I'll flash it on the screen. Okay, we can talk
through what that means.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
We can talk through ideal pathways, we can talk through
really anything that is grinding our gears. I've got a
few things that I would like to discuss with you,
of course, But at present, here's where things stan. Indiana,
the undisputed number one team in college football, thirteen and zero,
knocked off Ohio State. They did exactly what we expected.
They flipped Indiana and Ohio State. It was a three
(01:49):
point game, thirteen to ten. Instead of Ohio State being one,
Indiana is now one, Ohio State is number two. Georgia
at three makes a lot of sense, as does Texas
Tech at number four, virtue of their respective conference championship
victories in the SEC and the Big Twelve. Once we
get through that initial field, the top four who get
(02:09):
first round bys, we talk about your Oregon Ducks holding
steady at number five, Ole Miss holding steady at number six,
Texas A and m ND Oklahoma also holding steady at
seven and eight. Interestingly enough, Alabama holding steady at number
nine despite a twenty one point loss in the SEC
(02:30):
championship game. We will get there in second half two
at number ten. It is Miami. The Hurricanes at the
gun get the nod over Notre Dame to grab that
final playoff spot. They are going to be your number
ten team in this tournament. And then to round out
the field, after much discussion about the ACC's place in
(02:51):
all of this, and especially with a five loss, ACC
champion Tulane gets the number eleven spot and James Addison
gets the number twelve spot. So we have two G
five teams that have found their way into this tournament field,
which I actually think is kind of cool. Good for
them to get this. Two coaches, by the way, that
(03:12):
are going to be going elsewhere after the playoffs, So
that is kind of its own subplot all together. Dan
Rubinstein the first team out, the Notre Dame fighting Irish
the second team out, the BYU Cougars. You can go
a little bit further down the line if you want to.
I think Texas was the next one up. For all
intentsive purposes here though, the graphic that we've got on
(03:34):
our screen represents the top fourteen teams. With respect to
how that translates to a bracket, You've got Oregon hosting
James Madison with the winner squaring off against Texas Tech.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I believe that's the Saturday night at seven thirty Eastern game.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yep, correct. The Friday night game is going to be
Oklahoma the eight hosting Alabama the nine, with the winner
getting the rights to square off against under feet at Indiana.
On the bottom side of the bracket, we've got number
six Ole miss playing host to Tulane. This is a
rematch of a forty five to ten game that we
saw earlier in the year. The winner of that one
(04:12):
is going to square off against Georgia and last, but
certainly not least, number seven Texas A and M playing
host to number ten Miami. The winner of that matchup
squares off against Ohio State Dan Ruvenstein. So we've got
a lot to discuss here. Why don't we start at
the very top though, because I think Indiana has deserved
(04:33):
as much Indiana one. I don't think there was as
much dispute over Indiana being the one. No, do we
agree with how they handled Ohio State in light of
that loss, dropping them only one spot down to number two?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, I mean Ohio State was twelve and er. It
was a hard fought game. It was very tight. It
was thirteen ten. It came down to, you know, Indiana
out playing them in the second half. Ohio State had
a couple opportunities late to tie it or take the lead,
and Indiana was able to hold on. Indiana proved itself
to be the clear numb one. And I'm fine with
as impressive as Georgia was yesterday, with Ohio State going
(05:06):
into their conference championship game having quitted themselves well at
least on defense.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I'm fine with them number two. Yeah. The remainder of
the top nine was also kept intact, right. I think
Texas Tech obviously belongs at number four. I think George
obviously belongs at number three. Any dispute on your end
with how they handled let me say the next group
of four teams. We won't talk about Alabama quite yet,
(05:35):
but okay, Oregon standing pad at five, We've got Ole
Miss at six, We've got Texas A and M at seven,
We've got Oklahoma at eight. I know Greg McElroy on
the ESPN broadcast had something to say about Texas A
and M being below Old Miss, maybe even below Oregon
in light of the season that they had. I did
find it a little bit strange that they would drop
A and M as much as they did after that
(05:56):
loss to Texas, but obviously still in the field, obviously
still hosting a first round playoff game. Not going to
say I have that big of a gripe with it.
They kind of kept it in state from a week ago,
so I think we've had ample time to digest that
right now. But you cool with that too, You're good
with that. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I mean, look, you're trying to understand what the committee
is thinking with keeping Texas A and M beneath Ole Miss,
and I guess the thinking in this specific scenario, if
they were what three before, is that Texas A and
M had a schedule that did not feature basically anybody
near the top other than Texas within the SEC. Their
best win came in week whatever two or three against
(06:38):
Notre Dame, and their control over a lot of those games,
whether it was against Arkansas, whether it was against South
Carolina late in the season, whether it was against I
believe Auburn was close, yes Auburn was sixteen to ten.
That they did not feel like Texas A and M
was as in control as I guess they thought Ole
Miss was within the SEC. Let's also remember ole Miss
(07:01):
barely be Washington State. This is not a perfect ole
Miss schedule. It's not a perfect ole Miss season. I think,
if anything, they just sort of looked at it as
a later season control issue from textas A and M.
I don't know if I fully agree, but it's hard
to make a strong argument in favor of text A
and M or overall Miss. It's just where you fall
in the margins. How do we feel about two G
(07:23):
five teams getting in? These are the rules everybody signed
up for, and it's not on these teams. It's not
on the committee. The committee had no choice with regard
to James Madison and Tulane. Obviously these aren't teams that
were even really on the fringe of the top twelve.
But this is what we signed up for. And the
(07:44):
committee didn't have the foresight to think a twenty twenty
five unicorn of a cop major conference champion duke could exist.
And that's on them. That's on you know, the conference commissioners,
not the committee. The Conference commissioners and those in charge
of the playoff structure. It's on them, and you sort
of reput you so. And here is the reaping part.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Here, it is We've had a bunch of people right
in about this. But if the ACC had a different
set of tiebreakers, if instead of common opponent's record, it
was committee ranking, Miami would be in. Notre Dame would
be in as well, and maybe that would benefit the
ACC down the line. Maybe that could be a change
that we see in the immediate future. I don't know,
(08:28):
but that is what allowed Up to get into this
game in the first place, to win the ACC with
five losses and put the ACC you know, they have
their conference champion, who's not going to be part of
this because of the weird tiebreakers they had. Miami is
going to be part of it. We can get to
that next. But that is one aspect I think of
(08:50):
the system right now that I would look at and
the immediate short term as something that we're going to
see patched up before long, because I don't think they
want that. I do think if it weren't for, you know,
a really solid Miami team, that the ACC would have
any reps in this at all.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
The only other thing I would tag on with relate
as it relates to the G five is the committee,
as you're going to mention, is just going to do
what it wants, and they could have just ranked Duke
ahead of James Madison because they want.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
If they had wanted to write, they.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Could have ranked Duke ahead of James Madison, who obviously
was going to be behind Tulane. Now, James Madison was ranked
last week, but whatever was ranked last week again, you're
about to get to this doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
It just doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So the committee, with easy justification could have said, oh, yeah,
we're putting Duke at like number twenty one in James
Madison's number twenty two. And that's just sort of how
we failed with a win over a top twenty Virginia,
I think, you know the best of like. They could
have used garbled language to defend putting Duke ahead. They
didn't in that instance. I mean, why stop now? Why
(09:55):
stop now?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Dan? We've doing it on say time? Why stop now?
That's what I'm saying. It could have just done it.
I don't know. Congratulations to both Tulane and JMU. I
will be rooting like hell for both of those teams.
It is a great story for both of those schools.
It sucks that both coaches are now leaving, but at
a minimum, it's a really nice accomplishment for them. They
(10:18):
both had terrific seasons and I look forward to having
them in there. As somebody who has argued for a
long time that if there were all technically going to
be on the FBS level, you should at least extend
the olive branch, do something to include all of the conferences,
And by having both schools in here, I think it
does achieve some level of inclusion. So I'm happy about that.
(10:40):
I think from a general principled standpoint that I've always
had here, it's fine.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I don't know if I'm looking forward to forward to
these specific matchups, like I.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Mean, you're an Oregon fan, you're definitely looking forward to
these specific matchups.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
No, but I benefect your team greatly. It benefits the
team I root for. But in terms of just like
a pure competitive standpoint, it would be hard to get
up for if James Madison weren't playing Oregon, if JMU
or Tulane were playing you know, Oklahoma or Texastack or whoever.
Like you're just like, well, that's a different kind of matchup,
and you hope that it's more competitive than it seems
at the moment. I don't know what the early line
(11:13):
on Oregon James Madison is is it in the twenties?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Am? I might be one hundred and twenty. I haven't
seen it yet, but.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Either way, I am good in spirit with making this
inclusive at like the peril and at the cost of
keeping out like a nine to three team that really
didn't look like a playoff team.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
So it's fine, all right? Can we talk about the
other stuff? Now? Let's there are a couple bones of
contention over here in solid verbal East, maybe out there
in solid verbal West, maybe all throughout the verballerhood with
how the committee handled the remainder of this field, and
by that I am referring to number nine Alabama, number
(11:56):
ten Miami, and in this case number thirteen Notre Dame.
And I'll even want BYU in there at number fourteen.
There are a couple different things that we can talk
about here now. I think it goes without saying that
the committee going the entire month of November ranking Notre
Dame ahead of Miami, only to put Miami ahead of
(12:16):
Notre Dame in the eleventh hour because BYU was docked
for losing its conference championship game, which they didn't do
for Alabama. By the way, because how dare we do
something like that to an SEC champer an SEC championship
contender anyway, That's neither here nor there. We'll get to that.
But now, because we have Miami and Notre Dame back
to back, this is the logic they use to move
Miami ahead of Notre Dame and to give them the
(12:37):
final spot. Everybody listening to this knows that I am
a Notre Dame fan. I am incredibly disappointed that Notre
Dame did not get the NOD after being fed for
a month straight this nonsense, that the committee valued what
Notre Dame was doing, that the committee wasn't necessarily comparing
them against Miami, they were comparing them against the likes
(12:59):
of Alabama and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Right, and that they were saying like it was one
hundred year at check. By the way, SEC Athletic Director
university executive voice of the College Football Committee, after the
previous voice was let go for allegedly trying to start
a fight with an active tight end on his.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Own team, love it, allegedly love.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
It the defense there in his words, I am paraphrasing
his words, so maybe not his exact words was we
weren't comparing them. Miami had just lost two of three,
so we were weighing where they were at that moment,
so we weren't thinking about their whole season record. We
only started doing that now, which is of course a
bullshit continue.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
I am disappointed as a fan, but I would say,
out of principle, head to head should count for something. Agree.
What is confusing to me is why it took so
long to get here. And this is not just a
Notre Dame or a Miami thing. This is a college
football fan question that I think is very real, regardless
(14:01):
of fandom. Miami and Notre Dame played first week of
the year. We've had a lot of time to digest
that game. It was close. Notre Dame is in a
much different spot now. I'm going to recuse myself from
deciding who I would pick if the two teams played tomorrow, Right,
but head to head should count, and so, at least
(14:21):
as just a principled point of view, putting Miami in
over Notre Dame. Though I am disappointed, I understand that logic. Sure.
What I have issue with is why it took so
long to get here. I understand they're doing a show.
I understand they've got commercial inventory they would like to sell,
but why it took this long to kind of come
to that realization and made everything else going on around
(14:43):
college football. They could have saved us all a lot
of time just by saying that, yeah, we're gonna actually
give them the benefit of the doubt. Here, Miami had
worse losses than Notre Dame. Okay, and Miami definitely stumbled
in the middle part of their season. They have looked
very good as of late, and I am happy for
Miami that they got in while simultaneously being crushed that
my team didn't. But I get that point of view,
(15:04):
I really do. I just don't understand the timing of it.
I agree. What I take greater issue with is these
verbal gymnastics that they have tried to put hunter year
check through to explain how they penalized some conference championship
losers and not others. Right. Okay, and I pointed this
out a bunch of times on X The everything app
(15:26):
over the last twenty four hours, But if you take
last year as an example, every team that played in
a conference championship game and lost, all of these cases
were by one score. All of those teams without exception,
dropped a few spots in the polls. Penn State dropped
the spot, Texas dropped the spot. SMU dropped two spots.
(15:47):
All those games were closed. It's a three point game,
and eight point game and a three point game, respectively.
Alabama played in a conference championship game. Not only did
they pick up a third loss, but they lost that
game by twenty one points. Fact checked true. They did
not move an inch an inch in this latest poll, buddy.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
They moved up by barely beating Auburn, who I don't
believe has a winning record last week, and with an
interim coach sneaking by Auburn moved them up and Notre
Dame destroying whoever it was Stanford last week unchanged or
moved them down?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Right? What about BYU Dan So, by that same logic,
if you're going to get crushed in a conference championship game,
why does BYU then get docked? Right? They move BYU
out of their spot, which moves Miami up, which puts
them next to Notre Dame, which gives them right to
(16:42):
move them then ahead of Notre Dame because of the
head to ted tiebreak, which I'm not really arguing. Right,
I understand, but why is it not good enough for
BYU but it is good enough for Alabama to kind
of keep them where they're at. You know, I'm listen.
We talk about a lot of fun stuff on this show. Yeah,
(17:02):
make a lot of dumb jokes. It's not for everybody.
I get that. And sometimes we put weird theories out
into the ether, and ninety five percent of the time
that is all tongue in cheek. Even we don't believe it,
it's just fun. After seeing what they did here and
how they handled Alabama, this to me represents about as
(17:26):
tangible a proof as we are going to get that
there is some kind of SEC bias going on. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry. They lost by twenty one points and they're
not going to move an inch. I get that. You
don't want to upset the balance of the force with
respect to conference championship games. Everybody in that room probably
cares about conference championship games and not sending them the
(17:50):
way of the dinosaur. Great. Yeah, they dropped everybody last
year by at least one spot. They dropped teams this
year by one spot. Everybody except the SEC team in Alabama,
who By the way, even Kirk curve Street himself said
on the broadcast that they've been leaking oil, and damn straight,
they've been leaking oil. Because I watched that game yesterday,
(18:12):
they didn't belong in the same field as Georgia. I'm
not even an arguing point. Shut up. I'm not even
arguing that Alabama should be completely out of the playoff field.
I think Alabama is still a very good team, but
they're inconsistency with how they handle these conference championship games
and the conferences involved in the conference championship games is
(18:35):
something that I have a major issue with. Sure. So
this has been an embarrassment the full way through for
this committee from the guy who runs it getting kicked
off it, or I guess stepping aside right on through
their logic for at the eleventh hour, moving one team
above another, how they handled conference championship games for Alabama
versus or I guess I should say the SEC versus
(18:57):
everybody else. And as you said to me, and I
think rightfully so before we went on the air here, congratulations.
You are witnessing the final year of the college football
Playoff Selection Committee and can be a moment too freaking soon.
Is there anything else that there will be? But go ahead,
you can talk now, Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So look the cynic as you bring up the SEC
bias thing, the cynic is just like, look, the thing
that can't suffer within this sport is anything that affects television,
and not having major matchups in September and not having
a conference championship game would affect television. And so these
conference championships need to be important kind of. And so
(19:38):
that's why the BYU thing matters. The explanation was they
lost without seeming more competitive than they were the first
time when they lost in Lubbock, and so we ding
them for that. Alabama went five straight quarters without scoring
against Georgia. Listen again, Alabama did not score in the
second half of a win. It's good to win, you
(20:00):
should reward the win. And then they started this game
out yesterday not scoring for the first three quarters.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, and five straight quarters not really getting a fifty
yard line for like three quarters. Right, And you know what,
if you're looking at the totality of the resume, if
you're looking at head to head, if you're looking at
what Alabama accomplished during this season, I think the correct
way to look at. You know, the conclusion you should
come to with Alabama is there right there with Auburn
(20:28):
and South Carolina. I don't know if there's a single
Alabama fan, especially if you look at the comments on
all of the game recaps that were popping up online
last night, they were all, We're not going to make
the playoff and frankly, we don't deserve to. That's every
single comment. That is the conclusion that Alabama fans, after
(20:48):
watching the Georgia game came to. Now, every Alabama fan
is not the same.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
They are on the level with South Carolina and Auburn,
and a little bit less than Oklahoma, which I guess
technically are in this rankings right. They lost Oklahoma at
home in like a pathetic offensive, showing stop me if
you've heard this before. Alabama losing in a pathetic offensive,
showing like, clearly this offense didn't work the back half
of the schedule, so they're not dinged for a conference
(21:15):
championship game, with a history of being dinged for conference
championship games. They move up after an unimpressive win against
Auburn and the case against Notre Dame and the case
against Miami are pretty clear, right, Yeah, he los is.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I'm disappointed, but I get that that that logically right,
I get that, And I again, it's one thing to
be disappointed. It's another thing to say that it's a
bad faith argument. I don't think it's a bad faith argument.
I think the way that they presented it at least now,
I mean, it took them forever to get here, but
at least the way that they presented it. Though I
am disappointed, makes a ton of sense. These teams we
(21:49):
thought were very comparable. They were comparable in Week one,
it was a three point game. They looked at all
the stats, they were basically the same. We're going to
break the time by giving it to the team that
won on the field. Great, that makes sense to me.
That's logic. That's logic. That is logic. Why don't we
use that across the board.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
It's also, as we've talked about, and we've mentioned, if
week one, if labor day weekends late August does matter
that much that it is the most important tie breaker
when you're comparing similar schedules. Obviously Miami with a full
ACC schedule, Notre Dame with a partial ACC schedule, Florida
State played Alabama that weekend, and so if you compare
(22:31):
those three teams, nobody had that level a loss no
as disappointing at moments as SMU and Louisville war from Miami.
Notre Dame had a loss to Miami and a loss
to Texas A and M. The case against Notre Dame
to me, aside from the head to head loss, but
just more broadly speaking, is Notre Dame has more control
(22:54):
over their schedule and they don't play in a conference
championship game. Sidebar, If it's an advantage to not play
in a conference championship game because it can affect you,
why can't it affect Alabama?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
That's right, So there's the sidebar there.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
No, the case against Notre Dame is you have more
control over your schedule and so sometimes you can schedule
teams on neutral sites, or you can schedule G five
teams like Notre Dame has over the years when they
schedule you know, the Service academies, what have you and
the Service. The Navy team they played this year was
good that you need to exert like a terrific amount
(23:29):
of force, and Notre Dame did. But also, if you
don't play a lot of highly ranked teams. If you
don't play a lot of top twenty teams like the
best of the SEC schedules have, then you have to
perform in those games. And Notre Dame didn't just lose
to Texas A and M. They gave up forty one
points at home with their strength eventually becoming their defense.
(23:50):
But they got run through and around and over and
buy against Texas A and M. And they lost to Miami.
Close it lost by one point to Texas A and M.
On A botched yesterday, Okay, so I'll tell you. I
hear you. They would have tied with the extra point,
and they gave up a game winning touchdown to a
tight end who never catches balls.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
No, that's fair. And you know we could say the
same about Texas A and M giving up forty points
of course against a Notre Dame offense that at that
when your season was not fully developed. So I get it,
I get it. I think it comes ways. But what
I'm saying won that game, so fair.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Enough, the margin for Notre Dame is less because you
can take a look at a team I agree with
that that that plays in a conference and say they
have no control over their conference schedule, right that sometimes
it's going to be a murderer's role like what Oklahoma's
was this year, or Texas is sometimes or was this year,
and sometimes it's just going to be a fortunate schedule
like we had with you know, the ACC championship teams
(24:45):
with Duke in Virginia. I'm sure I agree with so,
but I'm saying that's the case against Notre Dame. I
just think people are making the wrong case right now
because Notre Dame themselves played like a playoff team after
those two losses, and those are good losses and if
your losses have to matter, just like wins have to matter.
The thing that really annoyed me about the Alabama thing
(25:07):
was these again this is Hunter Yeerchek's paraphrased words, is
we looked at the totality of alabama schedule so obviously
including the worst loss to a team that hasn't won
a road game in two years, and we said, you know,
they also have a pretty incredible win that they were
able to beat the SEC champion on the road in September,
And the only reason that Georgia is the SEC champion
(25:29):
is because they beat Alabama literally yesterday, forty four minutes ago.
And so that tells me and my pea brain that
the committee just thought to themselves, we can't put in
the three, four, five and leave out the number two,
even though you definitely can. They lost to a dumb,
(25:52):
dumb acc team to start the season a very important
time per the committee.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Dan, that's not even the thing though. Yeah, it's not
even about leaving Alabama out of the playoff. It's about
some conference championship games meaning something, meaning enough to drop BYU.
And it's about others that were almost as lopsided, not
having any bearing whatsoever on the rankings, not at all.
(26:20):
They didn't drop a lick nothing. And you know what,
they didn't even think about dropping them a lick because
it's al a frickin' Bama. I agree, they had their
mind made up before this week. Shame on the committee.
What do you call them? Dented avocados on avocados? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Look, and then so then the question becomes, Okay, if
it's a thirty five to seven loss, what's the threshold
for saying Alabama is not performing like a playoff team yesterday?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Dan? What is the impetus for any of these teams
any of these teams that are in the top twelve
to even play there once in a conference championship game.
If it's completely meaningless, completely independent of the final score,
what is the motivation to take your ones out there
and risk them getting hurt? I agree.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
I think Kirby Smart and Kaylin de Borr should have
gone to some sort of like Cracker Barrel or Chili's
or something and had a handshake agreement, let's both pay
a fine and not play, or just play our bunch
of our walk on.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
This is old like FIFA World Cup BS, where two
teams could come to a gentleman's agreement like, ah, maybe
we just won't score and then we both go through. Right.
It wasn't quite that, But what's the point? What's the point?
They want to have conference championship games with real meaning, right,
That is what I am getting from this. But at
(27:40):
the same time, the conference ship games don't really have
any real meaning. They just sort of like them because
it's an extra game they could sell into. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
By the way, this, to be clear, is a ninth
SEC conference game for these teams. This is not some
sort of crazy extra game that no teams would have
to like This is a ninth game. The Big Ten
and the Big twelve already played nine conference games and
then play a tenth in their conference championship game. So
this is not an above and beyond moment for both
(28:08):
Alabama and Georgia and whoever plays in the SEC championship game.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
This is not.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
This is merely a ninth game that the SEC is
eventually going to anyway. But it's a it's a pretty
pathetic showing.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
It really is.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Like the case for Alabama is they were good for
like three and a half weeks in October.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
They're like, okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
I just I'm always going to be a believer that
all weeks are not created equal and seasons are living,
breathing things. And Georgia just won without two of their
best receivers and their starting center and managed to find
a way to look like Georgia. Georgia didn't look like
Georgia the week before against Georgia Tech and managed to
find a way to win that game, Like this is
what excellent teams and worthy teams do, and Alabama just
(28:53):
over and over again is sort of getting a thumb
on the scale and this is our sport.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I am not arguing that Alabama should have been left
out entirely. I am not making that case, but I
am saying we need to come to an understanding. Either
conference championship games matter and can have can have some
penalty right if you lose in dramatic fashion, or they don't.
(29:25):
We can't have it both ways, because this is now
a situation where we had it both ways. It worked
against BYU, worked right against BYU, worked against other teams
that lost, worked against Ohio State, they would right they dropped. One.
Doesn't work for Alabama though, because it's our precious sec beautiful. Yeah. Absolutely, anyway, listen,
(29:47):
I'm gonna get off my high horse now. Of course,
welcome everybody's feedback. I'm not trying to dunk too hard,
but I feel very passionately about this. I think it's
a joke. I think it's a joke specifically with regard
to this. I get the Notre Dame in Miami thing.
I am crazy disappointed. I've said that ten times now,
but I get that. I get that I wanted both
(30:08):
teams in but that wasn't going to happen. But the
way that they handled this conference championship thing, I think
is an absolute farce.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Do you think there would have been a number if
they lost fifty two to seven?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
No, no, you don't. No, it's unbelievable. It's great. It really.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
By the way, once again, tinfoil hat Dan here. They
started the show with the Alabama messaging.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Oh they did it was they did? I was just
going to bring that up. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
It was an Alabama anchor tossing to an Alabama quarterback
and then via satellite a legendary Alabama coach who is
a paid consultant with an office on campus at Alabama.
And at this point, I it is my belief if
you are taking a paycheck from ESPN, I think you're compromised.
I just there is something about watching this coverage that
(30:58):
screams like if McDon donald's had a TV network and
had an annual award for like, here is the best
milkshake or milkshake adjacent product, and it goes too and
we're gonna go around this roundtable. We're gonna have the Hamburgler,
We're gonna have grimis. Everybody's gonna weigh in. I think
you got to give it to mcfluury, and everybody's like,
I think mcfluury is the choice and you're like, Okay, cool,
(31:19):
I think you're compromised. If you take any money from
ESPN and you weigh in on the college football playoff,
you're just wearing a badge. That's all you're doing. I mean,
Bill Connolly is compromised. I just see this in the.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Bill Connolly helped to decide, right, he helped to decide
the Mountain West Championship participants.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Bill Connolly is compromised. He is, and you know what,
he's the best. He is the best. But at the
same time, if he went on the air, and I
believe in my heart of hearts that Bill Connolly's heart
is pure, but if he went on and be like,
well you have to consider though.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
A ESPN I would Okay, let's flash the bracket up there, now,
flash the Brackett's Let's get away from this in a second.
Let's celebrate my teams that are in this playoff field. Yes,
let's not talk about the method anymore. There's going to
be plenty of time to go over that again, I'm sure. Yeah,
(32:21):
here is where things stand right now. Again, we talk
through the first round matchups, who the winners of those
first round matchups are going to square off against if
they make it through into the quarterfinals. As you look
across the twelve team field here and these matchups, is
there a particular path that jumps out to you immediately?
(32:42):
And I'm not just talking the first round, but is
there a pathway through to the semifinals that you think
rises above the others? Because I have a few thoughts
on this as well, but I want to get your
take first, since I've been dominating here by yelling into
this microphone.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
I think Indiana's path is pretty good. Good Honestly, where
are they playing that game?
Speaker 1 (33:03):
By the way, I believe that's in the Rose Bowl.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
That's that would make sense. That's in the Rose bul
So any and it gets to play in the Rose
Bowl against either Oklahoma or Alabama. I don't hate that
path because I just I think Indiana is so buttoned
up right with what they were able to do play
to play on both sides of the ball. I don't
hate that path playing in the Rose Bowl. Again, though,
it's how you feel about that all that extra time
because they won't be playing Today's December seventh, so that's
(33:27):
what twenty four to twenty five days away. Yeah, yeah,
So that's a that's been three and a half weeks
of you know, going home for the holidays or you know,
it's just it's an a rhythmic experience figuring out portal
stuff behind the scenes, figuring out higher stuff for all
these you know, teams that have the buy, it's just
a long time. I think Ohio State's path is pretty
nice and Oregon's path. Look, you get your a three
(33:49):
touchdown favorite, and it's not great to play against Texas
Tech defense. That is a brutal, brutal ask but it's
across the country for Oregon. It's a good distance for Texas.
Texas Tech, I imagine, is going to be just unbelievably
just hyped up to be in that matchup. But I
don't hate Oregon getting the Texas Tech offense in this one.
(34:10):
And Oregon, weirdly enough, I already looked a little bit ahead,
and you know, maybe James Madison beats Oregon. Oregon has
struggled in the red zone on defense with allowing touchdowns,
and Texas Tech has struggled on offense scoring touchdowns in
the red zone, So that's like an early read there.
So no, I think in terms of upsets, Oregon probably
in that five to four matchup, if we get it,
(34:30):
has a nice path, and then Georgia ole Miss. I
just have no idea what to expect from what ole
Miss looks like with Pete Golding and Charlie Weis Junior
is calling the offense. There, I'm not putting them through
over tu Lane immediately. But they did beat Tulane by
a comfortable margin this season. Yeah, and Tulan has their
own distraction with their own coach leaving. So I think
(34:52):
the best first round matchup is probably Miami A and
M purely from A like, Okay, so we both beat
Notre Dame. How are we going to play each other?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah? Well that's interesting in its own right, you know
what I mean, They've got I think that's the best
game in round one. Yeah, So, to answer your question
from earlier, the winner of the A and M Miami
game plays Ohio State and the Cotton Bowl. So perhaps
a bit of a home game for Texas A and M,
although it's always a home game when Ohio State's involved, right,
they travel Jerry World Cotton Bowl, Arlington. Yeah, that's right,
(35:23):
your Oregon Ducks. Should they pull through and knock off
James Madison, that will be in the Orange Bowl. Right
as I mentioned a minute ago, the Indiana game versus
the winner of the Home in Alabama is going to
take place in the Rose Bowl. And then the final
quarter final matchup between Georgia and whoever wins between Ole
Miss and Tulane that will be in the Sugar Bowl.
So if Tulane gets through, that'd be fun. I think
(35:44):
the path that jumps out to me initially is the
Oregon path, and this is something that I talked through
with you Ian to go now. It feels like forever ago,
but Oregon is going to be a healthy favorite. I
haven't seen by how much over James Madison. Maybe we
can pull that up here as we're talking through all
these matchups. I think Oregon matches up particularly well with
Texas Tech. I get what you're saying about Tech Tech Defense.
(36:06):
Tech Tech defense has been incredible for sure, possibly America's best.
I am not enamored with that offense, and so I
actually see that as a rather low scoring game, more
of a defensive struggle between those two. And I've got
Oregon making it through into the semifinal. Yep, no knock
on Texas Tech. Forgive me. I just don't trust Baron
Morton in a high leverage spot like that. So I've
(36:29):
got Oregon making it through into the semifinals. I've got
Oklahoma over Alabama in that first matchup. Again, that's a
rematch we saw that one earlier, was a close game
earlier in the year. I think Oklahoma pulls another one
out over Alabama, and I think Indiana moves through into
the semifinals for a rematch against Oregon. On the other
(36:50):
side of the bracket, I've got Old Miss over Tu Lane.
I've got Georgia over Old Miss.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Sorry, once again, where would that game be Georgia Ole Miss.
That would be in the Sugar Bowl, So that would
be in New Orleans. Inside we would have Jerry World. Inside,
we'd have the Rose Bowl. Likely good weather. We'd have
South Florida, likely good weather, though sogginess is on the table.
I like Georgia over Ole Miss.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I like Georgia over a lot of teams right now,
to be honest with you, with the way that they've
been playing, They're one of these teams that has taken
a quantum leap here second half of the season, and
that culminated with an SEC championship over Alabama yesterday, Georgia
right now again the three seed. I've got them through
to the semi finals. I've got Texas A and M
over Miami, And I am a bit on the fence
(37:38):
about Texas A and M versus Ohio State. If I'm
being real with you, I really like this Texas A
and M team.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Well, it's a matter of which one shows up when. Yeah,
I really like this Texas A and M team.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
My inclination is still to go with Ohio State, but
I could be swayed off of that. I think for me,
that's the toughest part of this bracket to project forward.
But gun in my head right now, I probably go
Ohio State. Okay, fair enough. So.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
One of the interesting things in looking at these teams
who are playing is the recency of interesting, big, meaningful wins,
Like Oregon has won in usc not a playoff team,
but a decent win at home. Alabama doesn't have one.
Oklahoma has a pretty good Alabama obviously. Ole Miss has
(38:33):
decent wins though recently. I don't know if I'm missing
anything with ole Miss recently, just in terms of how
we're playing. Obviously they're dealing with off the field stuff.
You know, the beat Florida South Carolina. The Oklahoma game
was I think before Halloween, so they haven't really played
a tough opponent recently. Alabama hasn't performed well, Miami hasn't
played anybody in a long time. You know, I'm depending
(38:55):
on how you feel about Pitt. I guess maybe that's
disrespectful to Pitt and Texas. A and m has not
beaten a good in quite some time. So the recency
of results is just interesting to me in terms of, like,
how accurately can we gauge, you know, where this team
is right now? I think it's all over the place.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
I think you'd be hard pressed to pick anyone at
this point other than Indiana period. Yeah, period, full stop.
I mean they look absolutely legit. Their defensive showing against
Ohio State on Saturday night was what stood out the
most to me. To be able to win a couple
different ways, right, Yeah, To be able to win with
(39:36):
your back to the wall, needing a miracle drive on
the road in Happy Valley emerging victorious, or to be
in a bit of a defensive slugfest on a neutral
site against a team that has owned the conference now
for you know, a good chunk of time at least
if they haven't been winning the conference title, they've been
winning national championships, or it's Ohio State, they're always in
(39:58):
the hunt. So to get a win like that in
the manner that they did, basically to play physical football,
go toe to toe with Ohio State and win that
one by three. This is a team that can beat
you a multitude of different ways. And I'm not sure
I feel much differently about a rematch between them and
Oregon should it come to pass, because Indiana showed me
something in that game against Ohio State.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
By the way, this in terms of what this year's
bracket looks like in the old old system, Indiana's your
national champion, right, lone undefeated team crown them in the BCS.
We're getting likely what Indiana Georgia right in this championship
game without like a huge argument made for like Texas
(40:40):
Tech or Oregon. In the four team system, you have
a Texas Tech Oregon conversation. Oregon, I guess has the
better loss but didn't make their conference championship game, and
Texas Tech, you know, dominated their best their their best
opponent twice in BYU and won their conference championship game.
So that's an interesting conversation to have. But like, it's
(41:00):
not crazy to have a Texas Tech, Georgia, Ohio State
Indiana playoff. Like people will be like, all right, yeah,
those are the four well, and it's just I'm really
hoping we have good interesting matchups here. But how we
got here I think was pretty screwy. Again with a
committee made up of dented avocados, and yes, Buster Onney compromised,
Mark Messier compromised, take your pick, they're all compromised.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I would welcome anyone's feedback out there who's got something
to say. Jessica Mendoza, you compromised. You can either write
in sliverbo at gmail dot com, hit us up in
the comments, hit us up in the chat. We're going
to have ample time to go through and discuss these matchups,
look at point spreads once they're a little bit more settled,
(41:44):
and of course go through the feedback that we get
from the verballer hood on just the manner in which
they got to these twelve teams.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
But do you think, by the way, yeah, just because
you're a notre dame human, do you think this would
this a the beginning of a case for Notre Dame
to join a conference. Notre Dame is demolished in the
ACC if they're playing obviously Virginia or Duke in this
championship game, and they would or they would have an
(42:13):
opportunity if the tiebreakers were different, to play against Miami.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
Once again, I feel like we get to this moment
every so often where we're like, Aha, this is the
thing that's gonna do it.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yeah, and it might just be a rare year both.
It seems that like ten and two for Notre Dame
is largely going to be good enough.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Often, I think it is far more likely that they
expand the playoff to fourteen or sixteen teams than Notre
Dame joins a conference in the short term to give
themselves potentially a leg up to get into this college
football playoff field. You know, part of me wonders if
they were in the Big Ten but did not qualify
(42:54):
for a conference championship game, same record, Big Ten schedule,
would we have felt differently about the fighting Irish. I
know it's popular to make fun of Notre Dame for
being independent. I've gotten it probably about a thousand times
already today. Well, they should join a conference like a
real team. Okay, well, if they were in a conference,
(43:15):
if they played a big ten schedule and they still
went ten and two, maybe with a similar strength of schedule,
would people have felt differently about Notre Dame in this case.
My hunch is yes, because they'd be in a conference
and they'd have that label. But in all practicality, it
might not have made that much of a difference in
terms of the underlying numbers. So I don't know. I
(43:36):
just don't think it's likely. With how dead set determined
they are to remain independent. It is so much a
part of their identity as a program on the football side.
I know that's not ubiquitous across all of Notre Dame's programs,
but it is such a big part of who they
are and who they want to be. Now, if we've
(43:57):
got a twelve team field next year and the same
thing happens, if this happens a couple times over, then
it's a conversation. Because they are investing heavily in this
football program. Marcus Freeman is clearly a name that is
in demand, and I think at some point, yeah, maybe
we could we get to that moment where it truly
does make more sense, if only to help this program
(44:20):
get back to the level of winning a national championship.
But I think this taken in a vacuum is probably
not enough. And being so, they have a vote in
that room, and being so, it seems like there's already
a lot of momentum on expanding the playoff, albeit nobody
knows how. I think that is the more likely outcome
because if this is a sixteen team field, even if
it's a fourteen team field, Notre Dame gets in easily.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
I agree. I look, it's just how the committee evaluates
things is just going to change day to day, and
so doing anything dramatic is pretty silly because the committee
will have no idea how it feels about it on
Tuesday as it compares to Thursday. And you you know,
you can say, you know, Notre Dame should have won
those big games. Miami should have beaten SMU, Miami should
(45:05):
have beaten Louisville, didn't matter, right, they're in a conference,
didn't matter. But they won the head to head game
in August, and that apparently is is the thing, and
I think head to head should matter. But if you
take in the totality of it, it's just team to
team situation a situation. It's not an easy job. Let's
be clear, No, it isn't.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
I don't envy having that position, And I don't mean
to imply that everybody in that room has a hidden
agenda or anything crazy like. No, I don't think that's
the key. I think these are a lot of people
who love college football want to be part of the process.
So that is admirable, But it's just very, very frustrating
from the outside in if you are not a fan
(45:46):
of Alabama, even if you are a fan of the SEC. Yeah,
to look at how this is treated inconsistently across conferences
with respect to these conference championship games right there truly
is no impetus to go in there and win. What
is the point of having them? Right Like Greg McElroy
(46:06):
talked about this speaking of Alabama voices in the room
about how the committee set a precedent last year for
not wanting to penalize teams that lost conference championship games.
They don't want teams to fall out of the playoff
field as a result of losing a conference championship game.
But they did fall. But all those teams did fall
by a spot or two. So the fact that this
(46:27):
loss by Alabama was way worse than any of those
games and they didn't move an inch, right, I don't know,
that doesn't do much to emphasize the value of conference
championship games either. No, not at all. They were sort
of damned if they didn't. Damned if they didn't. It's
in fairness to the committee. I mean, there was not
a good choice here. But this inconsistency, I think is
(46:51):
going to be a real issue, and I don't expect
people are going to be talking any less about it
moving forward, because especially now as we're talking about banning
the playoff field, I think it even further degrades the
value of conference championship games. And you know, we will
probably arrive organically at this moment where everybody just kind
of throws them to the wayside, and maybe we go
(47:13):
more the direction of what Tony Petiti's been saying on
the Big Ten side of things, which we should just
have playing games to determine who gets in from our
conference and go with that instead. I'm not crazy about
any of this, mind you, but this inconsistency, combined with
the fact that they already want to expand this thing,
I think has taken us to a point where championship
games kind of go bye bye.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Every quote will make more sense. And I don't know
if there's a find and replaced function you can use
in your chrome, in your safari whatever. Every Playoff Committee
quote will make more sense if instead of a period,
you add a comma and buy and large. We looked
at this and we felt it was important that we
grade on this rubric Comma by and large, right, it's
(47:58):
when they feel like applying, where they feel like applying.
And I cannot stress enough that the chair of the
committee went on ESPN. Owners of the college football playoff right,
went on ESPN and with a straight face, sold America
on the idea of what Alabama did yesterday somehow was
(48:23):
more impressive because they had a win earlier over the
team that just put them in a locker. It is
somehow good actually that Alabama lost yesterday because it improved
their best win. That kind of backwards logic is what
gets us to this insanely silly moment, Dan.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Rubisin, why don't we leave it there. We appreciate everybody
who tuned in to watch this live. We went a
little bit earlier than expected because I was spitting mad.
I put on a collar shirt for the occasion. Though
I was excited about this broadcast, asked, I wish for
a different outcome, But that's me speaking as a fan.
I think everybody knows where I stand on this and
(49:07):
some of the inconsistencies that really got me going. I
think everybody knows the same about you. So we would
welcome anybody's feedback against sliverble at gmail dot com. We've
comments wherever you can be at YouTube, be at Spotify.
Many podcast apps out there allow you to do that now,
so we read all of them. We don't always have
a chance to respond to all of them, but we
do read all of them. We got a lot of
them coming in, especially this time of year. If those
(49:29):
don't work for you, hit us up on social media.
We would love to hear from you. As I like
to say, just don't be a dick. Okay, be nice
about it. We're all in this because we love college football.
You welcome your tack.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Don't email in digital do that is.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
That Morgan Freeman sing diary diarrhea? Yeah, okay, don't do that.
That's other than that though, That's okay. We've got our
field of twelve. We will have plenty of time to
debate where it goes next. We will talk through bowl
matchups on one of our upcoming episodes. We still do
need to talk about Penn State hiring Matt Campbell. There
(50:04):
has been a lot that is going on in the
college football world. We also need to go through signing Day.
We'll bring our friend Brandon Hoffman on at some point
here over the next few episodes as well. So just
because the regular season and conference championship week is over,
we've got playoffs, We've got news. We got a bunch
of stuff going. This is the new December in college football.
(50:28):
News has not ceased to exist at all. Make sure
you hit follower subscribes that you don't miss any of
those episodes. We're going to do our best to get
through all that. Yes, Forballers dot Com is where you
can go if you want to support what Dan and
I do. We're going to be launching a playoff game,
you know it as Bowl Bingo. We played it last year,
everybody loved it. We're going to do that again, So
(50:48):
stay tuned for more information. If you want to get
in on the action, compete for fabulous prizes against the birballerhood.
In the meantime though, for myself Ty Hildenbrandt, for that
beautiful gentleman over there, Dan Rubinstein. Thank you as always
for tuning in, for supporting, for downloading, for listening, for
just helping us through these interesting times in college football
and in the meantime, as always, stay soft peace,
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