DanvilleFan

I agree. However, with how "power heavy" college sports are getting you know there will be some media pressure to exclude them. The MAC hasn't had 2 teams make the dance since 1999 (Kent State & Miami). Miami got to the Sweet 16 (upsetting #2 seed Utah) before they were eliminated by Kentucky. At least they kept Rick Majerus from losing to Kentucky for the umpteenth time in the NCAA Tournament.

The big question is they finish the season undefeated and lose in the conference tournament do they get an at-large? The committee has never denied a team with just one loss before but Miami's overall SOS and metrics are weak.

I feel like Ole Miss will litigate any discipline and try to find a friendly judge in Mississippi to defend them, ala what Alabama did to get its player eligible over NCAA objections.

As someone else said, they'd put the game in Memorial. I'm not sure if we'd even accept an NIT bid if we didn't make the NCAAs. IMO we SHOULD play in it for the sake of getting wins and if these guys are gonna come back, then they need reps in something. But this happened in 2009 when we played UNLV in Memorial. That was kind of cool, actually.

We've seen this too many times this year for my liking and with our schedule being tough down the stretch it doesn't bode well. What alarms me more is that we have no commitments for next year's recruiting yet.

This is a good summary. I'd also add that Carroll was reportedly clashing with the Raiders GM and the GM won that battle so that's also why he's out. But the Raiders as a franchise are a mess. They keep running coaches through and nothing is getting established there.

In games I've seen, Reed is still a defensive liability even if his scoring is good.

Indiana - 70

I know Burrow was lost for much of the year but it's really getting old seeing the Bengals struggle for the first 50% of the calendar and then turn on the jets the last bit of the season and look like the team they should've been in week 1. McDaniel never impressed me as a coach. When I watched him on Hard Knocks a few years ago I was like "People are inspired to play for this guy?"

Agreed. My argument was never against Miami's inclusion because of the head-to-head match with the Irish, although I think Miami's inability to win a weak ACC this year was pretty bad and they had worse losses on the whole. If the ACC had better tiebreakers based on the CFP rankings, Miami should've been in the ACC title game, rendering the whole debate mute. But I do think the Irish should've been included over Alabama or Oklahoma. The SEC just wasn't as strong of a conference this year to warrant as many teams as they got and after Alabama's poor performance in the SEC title game there was enough grounds to jettison them from the field. Even Oklahoma was trending downward after the QB got hurt. But conference title games are in a weird spot right now with this playoff concerning whether losses/performance in them should count for your spot in the field. Moving to bigger conferences makes this a mess too because without divisions you get lots of teams with similar records who don't always have comparable schedules.

Blame the present accountability system for this as those metrics on discipline/graduation get districts punished so it encourages what you say. That's why it bothers me these days when people champion graduation rates rising. So much of that inflated and the testing data does not show that graduates are coming out with more knowledge or skills than before.

I wouldn't agree with this statement on a universal level. Generally speaking, private school teachers make less than public school teachers and the benefits comparison isn't close, which is why you see more people sticking it out in the public school system.

The Monday playoff game is so stupid.

15 Point Game: Ole Miss 9 Point Game: Oregon

This is a recipe for a court challenge on anti-trust grounds. The G5 are not going to tolerate this and will win a lawsuit on it as well, especially when they have paid millions to join Division I in football. The only way out of this would be a massive buyout of those schools by the power conferences. No one will care about an NIT for the G5. Ratings for that will be terrible. Schools won't care about it either. If that's your solution, these schools just need to go to FCS and call it a day at the FBS level. Also, this super conference when it takes place it will fail. No one is going to watch a glorified XFL/USFL. When college sports really goes all-in on detaching itself from the university experience and sets up shop as a mini-NFL and mini-NBA and you see universities merely licensing their name out to teams, it will implode.

4 Point Game: Oregon 3 Point Game: Georgia 2 Point Game: Indiana 1 Point Game: Ohio State

Battle of the big money boosters. I think Oregon wins this one by a touchdown.

That is fine if that is what they aim to do but the twist is not all the teams in those conferences are going to make the cut. Kentucky might be one that does not. I am also wary of how that is even going to work or be sustainable.

So they play their own playoff for......what? Either the G5 are part of FBS or they aren't. If not, the Power 4 need to create their own division, break away, and only play themselves going forward. No more "buy" games, no more cupcake games, etc. You can't have a big FBS division and then just cut out half the teams from a playoff. That's nonsensical.

Hot take? Alabama isn't that good and drew a weak Oklahoma team in round 1. But I think they'll get a lot of rep on the spread/lines for this game because of their legacy.

Ohio State has the more talented team here. I just don't think Carson Beck can lead the Hurricanes to victory here. But I think Ohio State is making the finals, so obviously I'm going to pick them in this game.

We can blame the ACC for this one. Stupid tiebreakers that didn't allow Miami a spot in the conference title game and that somehow let 7-5 Duke into the title game, which they managed to win because Virginia couldn't get the job done. But I think even if Virginia was in this game, they've probably have gotten smashed too because the ACC was terrible this year.

I think this a dumb take. The G5 play in FBS so they should be in the playoff. IMO the playoff should be 24 teams like FCS and take all the conference winners. Will there be blowouts? Yes but to me if you play at the FBS level, then those teams should have a seat at the table, including the MAC, Conference USA, the new PAC-12, Sun Belt, etc. If these teams are weaker, they will be lower seeds and be knocked out before the bracket gets to 16 anyway. Plus, I think it might help the G5 retain talent, coaches, and donations because people know they have a path to get into the playoff. FCS does this so why not FBS? This system would still leave something like 10+ at-large bids and those would get sucked up by top SEC, Big 10, Notre Dame, and a few other teams. Probably would've given us a great field this year without any debates. Yes, some team will argue they get left out under any system but when you are arguing you are the 25th best team in America maybe you should have won more games. If you are going to argue no G5 in the playoff that won't work on anti-trust grounds. Furthermore, if that's going to be the standard why should any fans of those programs continue to support them at all? Like, why should WKU fans go to games or contribute when they know there's zero chance for them to be in the playoff for the title? Are they supposed to be happy playing in some rando Bahamas bowl? That's just stupid. This year the G5 weren't as strong as past years when you had a team like Boise State or a TCU (pre-Big 12) that could make a run. In some ways NIL and the portal are ruining G5 teams because their talent is just being raided all the time, something that I've said here was a disastrous policy. This is also why in basketball you are probably going to see fewer NCAA Tournament upsets going forward, like last year. However, we either include the G5 in this setup or you just kick them out of FBS. You can't have it both ways.

It is stuff like this that shows that common sense isn't all that common (sadly).

Totally agree. Due to when students have to be on campus as transfers and everything else, I think concluding the season around this date is ideal. That pushes back when the regular season needs to start but that's a tradeoff that's fine with me. I'd also be fine chopping off a regular season game and going back to 11, which is how many they played when I was a kid.