FiddySicks

Tonight really emphasizes the :censored:tiest part of college football. These smaller teams almost never make a big run, and when they do, the result always seems to be something like this. It’s not just that they lose, it’s that they’re completely dominated to the point where everyone asks why they’re even in the game to begin with. That’s pretty damn demoralizing, and I can’t really think of another sport that has a similar issue. 
 

I used to not like the NCAA tournament (still don’t, really), but the reason was because it was always the same few teams winning, despite all of the early distractions from smaller schools winning games. Stuff like tonight changes my tune on that somewhat. Might as well find a way to weed out teams like this earlier on, rather than on your biggest stage. It’s just a really bad look for everyone involved. 

11 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

This game would be better had TCU and UGA met after a 12 team playoff? Huh? What? Huh?

In a 12 team scenario I can’t imagine TCU making it this far. It’s not impossible, but the one thing a large playoff usually does is weed out the weaker teams earlier. Just look at the NCAA tournament. There’s a lot of talk about the smaller schools winning games early, but it always ends up being the same handful of power schools that actually win the thing. 

This is really too bad. It’s one thing to lose and lose big, but to just get absolutely embarrassed like this in the National Championship game is another thing. This feels like it could potentially be one of those program set back games for TCU, even. Bummer. 

Yo, forget Notre Dame Bama bad, this is Georgia over Hawaii levels of bad. 

That 12 team playoff really can’t come quick enough.

Yikes. Well, congrats on back to back for Georgia, I guess. 
 

So far, this is even uglier than the Notre Dame Bama sacrifice from a decade ago. 

55 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

I'm kinda surprised to see so many people happy about the Packers. I always think of them as the second-favorite team of all non-NFC North fanbases. Is Aaron finally wearing people down?

You’ve never been out west, then. They’re probably hated on more than the Cowboys. They’re basically the NFL’s version of the St. Louis Cardinals. Even moreso than the Steelers imo. 

55 minutes ago, Sport said:

Packers, Steelers, and Patriots miss the playoffs. It's a good year. 

Taken out by the Dolphins and Lions, of all teams. Mid-to-bads doing gods work right there. 

11 minutes ago, TrueYankee26 said:

I always thought it was interesting, I am a sponge for history

How The States Got Their Shapes FTW. 

I feel real bad for the Lions right now. Best season in ages and they just miss. That’s rough. 

I also feel bad for all of you when we get the inevitable Seahawks vs Bucs NFC Championship game. 

1 hour ago, Dalcowboyfan92 said:

This team played like absolute [censored]. I don't care if it was a meaningless game, they still played terrible! They're going to get their butts kicked by Brady because they can't beat him. And it's not going to start now.

Next week is going to be interesting because Dallas really doesn’t look like a team that’s worthy of doing anything noteworthy, but this particular version of the Bucs is BIG bad. Like, pre Brady era alarm clock numbers kinda bad. Loser bad. I have no idea who is going to win (It’ll be Dallas, I’m sure), but neither of these two teams is getting any further than that. 

7 hours ago, rams80 said:

Personally I think we're doing a lot of concern trolling and bellyaching over 2 teams that honestly may be making early playoff exits because let's be real, this is very much a mental game and I think both Bills and Bengals are going to be too far inside their heads over everything in order for either of them to make the championship game round; they're gonna need an offseason and maybe a few (OK, more than a few) therapists to get everything back together.

I think this is probably true for the Bills, unfortunately (they really do have the worst luck). But I don’t feel the same way about the Bengals. I think they had just enough separation from it all to avoid it really messing with their heads. 

3 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

Thirty years ago, this is exactly what the league would've ruled.

I kind of think that’s why the idea even came into my mind. It doesn’t feel like a solution similar to that would be crazy unprecedented (at least, in the context of an unprecedented situation) with the NFL. 
 

Oh boy. What a mess 

Yeah. Like I said, it’s not an ideal solution. 

At the risk of sounding really callous and possibly upsetting people, I almost feel like the league wouldn’t be too out of pocket to award the win to the Bengals. They had the lead when this whole thing went down, and it was a player in the Bills that had this issue. I know that’s not an ideal solution, and I’m sure that’s going to upset some people (it kind of upsets me even thinking it), but I’m sort of at a loss on what else to do here that’s not going to throw the entire playoffs into chaos. It’s obviously much less important than what he’s going through, but it is still important. 

2 hours ago, Digby said:

Totally not how I expected 2023 to open on the USMNT front. What a weird story. Holding onto a morose hope that Gio Reyna dug it up in a fit of Benzema-style rage...now that's a scandal worthy of a proper footballing nation.

 

EDIT: Omg I was kidding but I was right. https://www.espn.com/soccer/united-states-usa/story/4844539/claudio-reyna-told-us-soccer-about-past-gregg-berhalter-domestic-violence-incident-sources

 

 

No freakin way. Omg. 

Not sure what to make of this Berhalter domestic violence thing.

That headline just reads so absurd. Makes it seem like he married a soccer ball. 

Yeah there’s a lot of “it’s too soon” talk when it comes to figuring this out, and that’s totally understandable. But truth is they’ve got to move rather quickly to solve this or it could cause some major issues. It’s going to be very difficult to find a balance between respecting the severity of this situation and solving the very real scheduling issue they currently have. And to make matters worse, they have to find a solution to this very quickly. Much like a lot of the NFL’s problems, it’s not an enviable position to be in. 

1 hour ago, infrared41 said:

 

Critical condition does not necessarily mean "on death's door step." For example,Jeremy Renner is in the hospital in Nevada and he's in critical but stable condition. We'd all do well to stop speculating. Far as I know, none of us are medical professionals.  We should wait for reliable information to come out.

Yeah… About that. Very weird that you bring that up. 
 

That happened just down the road from me, and his situation looked pretty dire, as he nearly lost his leg under a snowcat and lost a TON of blood. 
 

I know this because he was in the same ICU ward at the same time as my mom (I had a VERY bad holiday, but that’s a story for another time). 

From having a shot at the playoff to losing to Tulane in the Cotton Bowl two games later. Life sure came fast at USC. 
 

Enjoy the So Cal schools, B1G! 

Amazing how mentally weak every single non-Packers team is in the NFC north. It’s just scrimmages for Green Bay every damn time they have an important game vs those three losers. God, that must be nice. 

Bucs are definitely not gonna win the Super Bowl, but they’re gonna beat Dallas and Philly or Minnesota along the way because this whole thing is rigged and goofy. 

Nope. Not a fan of these. Makes the Cowboys look like the hillbilly Jets. 

At this stage I would absolutely be for a swap in places for Brady and Carr. When Brady first retired, he was my #1 want. He’s not going to thrill you, but if you surround him with the right talent, he can absolutely lead a team to success. I would be perfectly fine with that. Bucs probably can’t actually do that whole “surround a guy with talent” thing, but it would give them the best opportunity to. If it’s a choice between that or Garropolo or Trask, I’ll take option #1. 

Hahahahahaaaaaaa. I needed that so much. 

8 hours ago, GDAWG said:

Wasn't Carolina supposed to be terrible after they fired Matt Rhule?

They are terrible. But so is everyone else in that division. 

Absolutely amazing that Sac Republic forces out Warren Smith, and the very next team he helps to start ends jumping them for that spot. Karma is a real :censored:, huh? They deserve every ounce of that one.