McCall

1 hour ago, Sykotyk said:

A two year streak? Is that really noteworthy? 

All sports. NHL, NBA, MLB...

29 minutes ago, Unocal said:

Nick Saban without 5 star recruiting class talent

 

So... if he wasn't good at his job?

Do you really think that's some sick burn or something?

32 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

 

Let's do this.

 

I got my tickets ordered and I'm ready to go.

14 minutes ago, JerseyJimmy said:

weird how FSU can go undefeated in a "weak" conference and not get a playoff berth but liberty can go undefeated against a glorified FCS schedule and get rewarded with a NY6 berth.

 

we should delete lynchburg from reality.

The highest ranked Group of 5 champion is automatically given a New Year's Six bowl spot.

Mizzou vs Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl...

35 minutes ago, Unocal said:

 

FSU should boycott their bowl game

No one would care.

24 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

Simply removing team names helps demonstrate my point. You cannot leave any of the three 13-0 teams out. The final slot should and will come down to the Big 12 or SEC champion.

 

Guys. It's ok to leave Alabama out. America will be ok.

If anything, it illustrates my point even more. An undefeated ACC champion is not automatically as strong as a 1-loss SEC or Big 12 champion. If that were Louisville or Duke, would you give them as much credit as Florida State or Clemson? I’m guessing not.

46 minutes ago, tBBP said:

Alright, enough of this "ACC is the weaker conference" narrative horse.  Here are the numbers as of 25 November:

 

This season the ACC went 6-4 against the SEC, 4-3 against B1G, but 0-2 against the B12, for an overall out-of-conference (OOC) of 12-9. (Of note: the ACC has played the most OOC games of all the P5s, mainly thanks to Florida State.)

 

The "perceived to be mighty" SEC? (Though Georgia and Bama clearly are, no disputing that.) 4-6 vs the "weak" ACC, 1-2 vs the B12, 2-1 vs the Pac-12. They played no B1G teams. Their overall OOC record? 7-9.

 

Want more? Here's the B1G for you: 3-4 vs the "weakest" ACC, 2-1 vs the B12, 0-3 vs the Pac-12. Overall OOC? 5-8.

 

How about that Pac-12? 3-1 versus the B12, 3-0 vs B1G, 1-2 vs the SEC. Their final OOC record? 7-3.

 

Then there's the B12, the only P5 conference to play games against each of the other four P5s: 2-0 vs the ACC, 1-2 vs B1G,  1-3 vs the Pac-12 and 2-1 vs the SEC. Overall OOC? 6-6.

 

So y'all look at those numbers and determine for yourself who's the strongest and who's the weakest again, after it was all said and done between the lines.

 

If more people would dead the media narratives, see past the bias and look at things for themselves, they may be surprised at what they find. Maybe...the ACC is stronger than people give it credit for? Maybe...the SEC isn't as strong as the media machine-driven bias would have folks think?? Maybe, just maybe...the Pac-12 may have a chance???

 

Now I'll stand by to see who'll go to what lengths to tear into all this, BUT...as Isiah Thomas would say, "those are the facts".

What are the schools involved in all those matchups? Are we talking Michigan State from the Big Ten? We know it wasn’t Michigan, Ohio State or Penn State. Or even Iowa. We know none of those SEC teams were Alabama, Georgia, Mizzou, Ole Miss, Tennessee and only one was a great-offense-but-bad-defense-LSU. We know Texas and Oklahoma didn’t lose to any ACC teams. Nor did Washington, Oregon or even Oregon State.

LSU seems to be the only quality opponent from the other power 5 that lost to an ACC team, which was, yes, Florida State. But they’re not at the top of the conference.

You have to weigh the strength of those P5 opponents. Playing bad teams from the best conferences does not equal great wins.

11 minutes ago, CaliforniaGlowin said:

They both don't have to wear yellow pants. And they usually only play each other in exhibition games.

The pants aren't the issue. It's the jerseys. They are way too close in color. No league would allow them to be worn against each other.

23 hours ago, CaliforniaGlowin said:

I wish the Rams and the Chargers did that when they play each other.

You wanna think about that again?

Here the teams that have a possibility of making the CFP (listed alphabetically). Based on strength of the team/schedule, who are the top 4?

Alabama 12-1, SEC

Florida State 13-0, ACC

Michigan 13-0, BIG TEN

Texas 12-1, BIG 12

Washington 13-0, PAC-12

ALL are conference champions, so this is not a case of an undefeated champion vs a 1-loss non-champion/non-making-conference-championship-game scenario. We're not debating Florida State vs Ohio State getting in. Undefeated champion vs 1-loss champion is very much within reason to simply take the four best teams by strength of team/schedule. No way Florida State is in the top 4 of conference champions on that list.

EDIT: If Alabama had lost to Auburn last week and then beat Georgia, as a 2-loss SEC Champion, I would then give the benefit of the doubt to undefeated Florida State.

3 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

The committee has said they value championships. It has to acknowledge this one even if the game was horrible to watch. The backup should be back by December 31, so that will be taken into consideration as well. 

Texas and Alabama won their championships in stronger conferences. Alabama went undefeated in conference play, their only loss coming to non-conference Texas. Florida State beat LSU at the beginning of the season. But since then has played a weaker schedule and have a back-up or 3rd string QB. Barely beat Louisville and looked bad doing it. Same thing against Florida.

Really, can you argue that FSU going undefeated in a weaker conference is better than Texas and/or Alabama winning their championships in their stronger conferences with only 1 loss? We're not talking an undefeated vs a 2-loss. It's only 1. And that's small enough to weigh the strength of the overall and individual opponents. 

The Power 5 Champions:

ACC: Florida State 13-0

Big 10: Michigan 13-0

Big 12: Texas 12-1

PAC-12: Washington 13-0

SEC: Alabama 12-1

I don't think a one game discrepancy is enough to overrule quality of the teams and their schedules.

I was on board with "If FSU wins out, they should be in"...

But that game last night was just boring as hell. I can't, myself, see them deserve to get in. And it's the ACC, the weakest of the Power 5.

My personal belief would be:

1. Michigan

2. Washington

3. Texas

4. Alabama

But it'll probably be:

1. Michigan

2. Washington

3. Texas

4. Florida State (Don't care if they're undefeated, the other teams are clearly better.)

9 hours ago, MJD7 said:

So far for 2024 City Connects we will almost definitely see:

• Twins
• Cardinals
• Phillies

I'm curious what other remaining teams we'll see, and if we'll get the rest of them, or push some back to 2025.

Yankees, Mets, Tigers, Blue Jays, A's (probably on hold now), Guardians and Rays all have yet to unveil City Connect uniforms as well.

I actually prefer UFL. I've come to the belief that a 3-letter initialism ending with FL sounds the most legitimate, and since AFL wouldn't be available, unless they came up with something else for A to stand for, this is the next best option, IMO. I did like how the X in XFL didn't stand for anything and met the previously stated criteria, but as mentioned, if it's a merged league, one name over the other my not feel even. SFL (Spring Football League) wouldn't be a bad option, but not sure who, if anybody, still  owns that one, but I like that UFL doesn't restrict it to a particular time of year, even if they stay there.

4 minutes ago, raysox said:

I'm sure Orlando could work if done right, but why should they continue to exist if they averaged 7th of 8 teams at just a shade under 9000 fans a game

I feel the city's history of success in spring football merits more than one season to be judged on. You can just go back to 2019 and see the Apollos were #2 in the AAF in attendance at just over 19.5k per game. Now they played at UCF, which is a newer stadium. But I think it can still work. Hopefully if/when they come back, they can go back to UCF or even Exploria Stadium.

6 minutes ago, raysox said:

Unsure what you guys disappointed that there's only 8 teams post-merger want. They went with the 3 USFL cities that they had stadium deals with, the top 3 in attendance in XFL, the city with a team in both, and a team that takesthe highest priority in their home stadium. They picked the strongest 8 options i feel moving forward. Seattle got bumped to thursday night games  twice by the Sounders. Just kinda the reality of it.

Plus have you seen the quality of play at the NFL level? Have to condense a little bit for stability. Hell, after a couple years put a team in Ohio and San Diego. But now I think theyre trying to catch their footing.

I really think they need a team in Orlando. One of the strongest spring football markets with 3 stadium options (including one they were already using). Ideally, I think a start with 10 (the current 8 plus Orlando and Canton since they already have stadium deals) would be a better start. I personally don't mind the 8, just would've preferred 10. Speaking of Canton, I'm not an Ohioan(?), but what is the better Ohio market for spring football; Canton or Columbus? I feel like while Canton has the HOF and probably a better stadium, Columbus is the bigger market with 2 soccer stadium options that could be used, availability notwithstanding. Maybe someone with more insight could enlighten me on the matter.

7 minutes ago, CS85 said:

I still think they should go with LOAF:  League of Alternative Football, with the catchphrase, "Let's Get This Bread."

Why not League of AMERICAN Football?

2 hours ago, Chawls said:

 

Even geographically, it doesn’t make sense that they would exclude New Orleans in the merger.

They don't have a stadium deal. All the teams without their own stadium are not included/"paused" (plus Seattle, Orlando and technically Canton). Houston's iffy at the moment because the Roughnecks had one at TDECU, but it's being renovated, so there seemed to be a deal with Rice Stadium that either Houston team could play at.

But, yeah. The Breakers have no stadium at this time.

2 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

I wouldn't hold my breath on that

Every team that's reportedly staying has a stadium deal except Houston because TDECU Stadium is going to be undergoing renovations. But it was also said back before the merger talk that the XFL had an agreement for the Roughnecks to play at Rice Stadium, so either Houston team that stayed would play there. Of all the reports today, there was absolutely no mention of hub cities for games. Not sure about the continuation of the practice hub from the XFL.

3 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

UXFL (or whatever this merged to be called) clearly isn't the business of spending once cent more than they have to to stay afloat. Reduced to 8 teams. Continuing hub cities. They're not dropping a penny for the rights to a team that played seven games total,

Doesn't appear they're using hub cities.

1 hour ago, GDAWG said:

 

Seattle is too far away from the rest of the XFL, which is why they got cut.  Vegas was a disaster to start with.   As for the USFL, Canton had no permanent team and the others weren't even in their cities to begin with.   

I always figured Seattle wouldn't make it due to geography. But they supposedly have a stadium deal with Canton, so I don't know what's going on there. I think most figured the Maulers would just become "Canton". I'm not big on them dropping Orlando. They have a great history of spring football. One season shouldn't be enough reason to cut them. If New Jersey could get into Red Bull Arena, that would be great. And there's been that speculation about New Orleans playing at The Shrine. (or Yulman).

24 minutes ago, Cujo said:

XFL will retain 4 teams:

- Arlington Renegades

- DC Defenders

- San Antonio Brahmas

- St Louis Battlehawks

 

USFL will retain 4 teams:

- Birmingham Stallions

- Houston Gamblers

- Memphis Showboats

- Michigan Panthers

 

8-team league merges with another 8-team league only to remain at 8 teams.

 

This IS just reported at this point and not confirmed, so who knows.

2 minutes ago, GrayJ12 said:

I wonder what the history is of having siblings, while in different sports, both be in one of the major sports leagues. I say this because I just found out that Jaxon Smith-Njigba of the Seahawks has a brother, Canaan, who is a member of the Pirates.

Trayce Thompson (MLB) is the brother of Klay Thompson (NBA). It's not super common, but not unheard of.