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Exactly. And this whole thing started a few pages back because I've always said it's dumb when this happens in the SEC too. It's not extremely silly that Alabama and Georgia played for both the conference championship and national championship last year? Why'd they even play the first time? The worst ever was 2011/2012 when LSU beat Alabama in the regular season and their reward in the BCS title game was Alabama again who got a second chance with the unintended advantage that they, unlike LSU, didn't have to incur the extra punishment of the SEC championship game. It was so stupid then and it's stupid with OSU now. Again, I say all of this as a Buckeyes fan. They didn't get it done and if they beat Michigan in the National Championship game I don't know how I'll feel in the moment, but I'm imagining right now that it would feel a little bit hollow. For this reason I won't be terribly upset if they lose to Georgia because I don't feel like they should be in the playoff to begin with.

I don't think that's contradictory, but you also didn't highlight half my point there. Regular season would still matter because the games in my preferred system determine the participants in the final four. Not a committee, or a computer system, or voters. And it's only 4 out of 100+ plus teams so it would still require exceptional regular seasons from each of the 4 best conference champions. Who's the worst team who's ever won a major conference championship game? It might be this year's Utah or K-State. The winners of these games are usually pretty good, just by nature. Because Utah had to perform well enough in the regular season to qualify for their conference championship game and then went out and won the game. That's how the regular season games matter. And most of the time the 4 best conference champions would be better teams than Utah and have fewer than 3 losses. Crossed off part is because my system basically eliminates the necessity of thinking this way. If you win your conference championship game this "X is better than Y who lost to Z, but they were ranked n at the time" nonsense is almost entirely irrelevant. The only place my system asks for some subjective ranking is when it comes down to selecting the 4th vs. the 5th best conference champions. I mean, we might put Kansas State over Utah as the 4th best conference champion because they beat TCU. IDK. I'll discuss with my oracles and the council of elders on top of Mount Olympus. How so? They all still matter because at the end of the season you still need to be one of the 4 best conference champions to qualify for my final four and you still need to have a good season to reach your conference title game. Alabama didn't qualify for the SEC championship game because they didn't win enough regular season games so all their games mattered. OSU didn't qualify for the Big Ten championship game because they didn't win enough regular season games so all their games mattered. How'd TCU qualify for the Big 12 championship game? They won enough games to be there ergo the regular season games still matter. If TCU doesn't like that they won't be in my hypothetical Final Four then they shoulda beaten Kansas State when it counted and if you couldn't beat Kansas State* in a "play-in game" then I don't really have much sympathy for your case that you belong in the playoff that determines the national champion. To put it simpler, why does OSU get another shot at being national champions when they weren't good enough to be conference champions? We decided it on the field already. I'm an OSU fan and I think it's sort of lame that they're still alive. *no offense to Kansas State. They're just the convenient example here. So that's kind of my entire point. Those conference championship games shouldn't be redundant. If we're going to have them then they should mean something, right? The SEC championship game last year between Georgia and Alabama was kind of a farce because it meant a lot for Alabama and basically nothing for Georgia. It should mean the same thing for both teams and would have if it was the only ticket to the playoff for both teams. That's what I'm getting at. My idea removes the Calvinball and the moving goalposts that we deal with every year where the line for acceptance into the playoff is constantly changing throughout the season. If the definition to make the playoff is set at Conference Champion then every team has the same goal at the beginning of the season and the goal is fixed in place. If the definition to make the playoff is set at Conference Champion then these subjective top 25 rankings we discuss all season long are almost entirely irrelevant. RE: the super league, I think a huge problem in college football is the scale of it, but we already kind of naturally solved that issue with the segmented conferences that breaks it down into smaller groups defined by regions (more or less). Why not actually use those conferences for something when we already have them?

Terrible time to trip over my own butt. That 8-6 skidmark probably just killed me. Raiders Vikings Steelers Bengals Bills Cowboys Eagles Titans Chiefs Seahawks 49ers Dolphins Patriots

49ers need to bring back the enormous pants stripe and striped socks and the uniform is complete.

I watched the first half of that game last night. They don't look like the Saints. They look like a Pop Warner team named the Saints.

I know how the new playoff is going to work. I'm saying I don't like it. I'm saying I don't like how the current playoff works. I'm saying I don't want any at-large bids. This year, 5 years from now, 7 years ago - At-large bids are, will be, and always were a mistake. They undermine the results of the regular season. Period. I can go through the list of great games this season that would have been completely unimportant if they used a 12 team playoff season. It's bad enough that OSU-Michigan didn't matter at all this season with a 4 team playoff, but people actually want to make that problem worse, destroy more results, by expanding the at-large field? I know. My system is simple: Take the 4 best conference champions. If one of them has 2 or more losses then I don't care because they took the path to the 4 team playoff that was outlined to every team before the season in the FBS. Win your conference or you can't gripe. It would be purely based on results on the field, still exclusive for the regular season games to matter same as they always have, turns the conference championship games into games with some actual stakes, essentially turning them into playoff games of their own, and it would lessen the power of committee bullshirt. I get that the playoff is going to expand. I get that. I don't like it for reasons I've already explained - It's going to neuter the drama of the best regular season in sports in exchange for a few more playoff games that likely won't be that good anyways.

Yes. The FBS season has always been different from the NFL and other levels of college football and I think it's what makes it great and I'll be sad when that element where winning nearly every game matters is gone. I'm not afraid of an 8-4 team making the playoffs. I'm afraid of a two (or three) loss at-large like this year's Alabama, OSU, Tennessee, Penn State, USC, etc making an expanded playoff because of how that undermines the regular season results. When Alabama lost to LSU this year it meant something. If we had a 12 team tournament it wouldn't have mattered at all. What I'm saying is conference championship games are often meaningless (See: Michigan-Purdue, See: Alabama-Georgia last year), but what if every single one mattered every single time? You can build some actual stakes to the conference title games by tying them to a playoff berth and removing at-larges. That way they'd be defacto playoff games. That also makes a game like OSU-Michigan for the right to go to the Big Ten title game into a defacto playoff game. That's your expanded playoffs, but it still preserves the demands of being perfect in the regular season. Would it suck to lose one game all season and have the season end there? Yeah, but also tough ti***es. I grew up in the 90's and it happened all the time, I was in college in 2006 when we got them back, which is why the game mattered so much. Those stakes are pretty much gone now and it's a bummer.

The difference between football and, say, basketball, is the college football regular season plays far fewer games and has always demanded start-to-finish (near) perfection. That's why the college football regular season is the best regular season in any sport. Every regular season game means a lot more because they're scarce and because one loss can eliminate a team. If you expand the tournament then suddenly Alabama's loss at LSU doesn't matter. The reason that was such a huge win and dramatic moment was it basically ended Alabama's shot at the playoff. If you expand to 12 and give Alabama an at-large bid then it literally meant nothing. Because they cheapen the actual results on the field. Take OSU-Michigan, again. The winner of that game made the playoffs and the loser of that game made the playoffs rendering the game nearly pointless. I would even argue that OSU benefitted from losing the game because then they didn't have to go tear themselves up and risk injury in a meaningless conference championship game. That's a bad and dumb system. The more at-large bids you dole out the less losses sting, the less wins matter, and the less fun and dramatic the regular season becomes.

I'm strictly talking about football.

I do realize that. I'm saying we've been doing it wrong this whole time and even as an OSU fan their inclusion this year goes against my belief of how the system should work. The new system will only make the problem worse with the extra at-large bids. It's too bad.

I know why they don't do this (money) and I'm an Ohio State fan who will watch the playoff game against Georgia and root for them, but I must be consistent in my stance from previous years and say that I don't think you should be in the playoff without winning your conference. It diminishes the importance of rivalry and conference championship games. This season that would mean taking the 4 best conference champions, which would be 1. Georgia 2. Michigan 3. Utah and 4. Clemson. Now, people are going to circle Utah and Clemson and say "are they really deserving?" Sure. They're not "great", but they won their conferences and fulfilled my hypothetical requirements to qualify. OSU, TCU, Alabama, did not and their entire cases is all based on opinion. My system is based entirely on results. People want an expanded playoff, but we already have an expanded playoff - It's called the regular season, which acts as round one of the playoff. The conference championship games would act as round 2 of the playoffs. With the system as it is now, though, the OSU loss at home to Michigan effectively means nothing. TCU's loss to Kansas State in the Big 12 title game effectively means nothing. How many SEC championship games have we seen lately that effectively meant nothing? Imagine if Georgia-LSU had had actual stakes. Why are we okay with neutering the importance of these big end of season games? Every time I say this people respond, "yeah, but would you really want to see Georgia play Clemson and Michigan play Utah?" IDK. Not much different from UGA-OSU or UM-TCU to me. First of all, we've had like 3 good games in the 9 year history of the 4 team playoff so potential game quality shouldn't be a consideration. Second, most years the 4 best conference champions would not have such a wide gulf of quality between the top 2 and 3/4. This is kind of an aberration this season. Notre Dame fans will then chime in and say "BUT what about us?" I don't give a honk if Notre Dame ceases to exist. Join the Big Ten West if you want a shot. I'm tired of giving you special treatment, ya dorks. That's what I think. In conclusion, the conference title games should actually mean something and expanding the playoffs beyond 4 will make the regular season matter less.

They've been really annoying about who they've chosen to wear it against. This gets my vote for worst looking NFL game of all-time. It was physically difficult to watch. But yeah they keep wearing orange against KC. It's bothersome. This was 2015.

I'm trying to imagine what it would look like. You would also hang a defender back to counter the cherry picking in open play so I think it mostly cancels each other out, but I feel like it would open the field more and you'd get more goals off set pieces because you could run like a post play, similar to American football. I just want to see 4 or 5 games without offsides and if it sucks then I'll shut up forever. I actually think hockey offsides should be a hybrid thing because at the NHL level they're getting too big and too fast for the size of the ice, which they can't easily change. You can't do away with offsides entirely because clearing the zone is a key part of playing defense. My idea is first guy into the zone can cross the blue line without the puck, but once the whole team is in the zone then you still have to hold the line because that's a critical and exciting part of the game.

All they need to do is lose the navy blue. The logo looks great on the helmets with just red, white, and blue, but then every other element gets muddied by the unnecessary and thin dark blue outlines/stripes. It's a great example of less is more.

I get why soccer offsides is the way it is, but I'd love to watch a game where it's not a rule just out of curiosity to see what that game would look like.

I don't know how the Bengals keep beating Kansas City, but it's very fun. This is all I ever asked for as a fan - to be in big games and watch the team perform well in big games*. Not confident that they'll be able to survive the gauntlet that will be the AFC path to the Super Bowl and make it back, and if I were a gambler I'd take the field, but I can confidently say that the team is better now on December 5th, 2022 than they were on December 5th, 2021. It's a more sustainable and repeatable way of playing. For no reason I'm thinking about how Bill Barnwell's preseason preview of the 16 teams with the best chance to win the Super Bowl didn't include the AFC Champion Bengals. He did include the Colts, Cardinals, Rams, and Browns, though! *as opposed to the Marvin Lewis era when they'd find themselves in big games and then every starter on both sides of the ball would get simultaneous brain diarrhea and forget who they are and how to play football.

That totally sucked. Worst part is if we had Rourke playing we probably win that game by two touchdowns. 0-5 now in the MAC Championship game. Brutal.

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Holy moly I was certain the refs were going to screw us in the last minute.

I've seen this a thousand times before - I believe the medical term for this injury is he got drilled in the nuts.

I attended the Bengals-Titans clash in Nashville on Sunday. Thoughts: - Bengals won! I'm 2-0 all time when attending road games. The other was week one 2018 when the Bengals upset the Colts. - Not to be dramatic, but realistically a loss there would've probably been the end of their season. They'd be 6-5 going into games against KC and Cleveland (who they can't seem to beat) and then at Tampa, at New England, Buffalo, and Baltimore. It's a gauntlet, but being 7-4 gives them way more of a fighting chance. Chasing down the Ravens for the division is not out of the question (thanks, Jaguars!), though neither is missing the playoffs altogether. - Joe Burrow is great and everything I hoped for. Keep him safe and he's our guy for the next decade. Watching him without Chase the last 4 games has made this even more clear. - Bengals beat the Titans at their own game, which was not surprising to me, but may have been to national pundits. - Burrow got sacked 9 times in the playoff game at Tennessee last year. I think he got sacked twice on Sunday. The new o-line is gelling and Burrow has figured out the ways to play behind them. Any Titans fan who expected another sack parade must've been disappointed. - I get why they're trying to replace that stadium, but it's not nearly as awful as I was expecting. - I was supposed to go to the Blue Jackets - Predators game on Saturday night, but a water main break in the arena on Friday morning flooded everything and the game was cancelled. My dad said, "I've never seen a hockey game get rained out before." Was a bummer, but there's worse places to be when plans get changed - Nashville is a rip-roaring good time. - Titans fans were a bit more surly than I expected. I guess that's what happens when you actually beat someone in the playoffs. Forgive us, we're new at this whole 'Being Good' thing. When we got to our seats the whole section groaned and booed and I said "Sorry sorry. I'm the best behaved visiting fan you'll ever meet." which is true. I followed that with "I've dealt with too many Steelers in Cincinnati so I know how it feels" and the Titans fans around us all chimed in with how awful Steelers fans are. It's my experience that everyone can agree that Steelers fans are the worst people alive and it can be a useful bonding exercise. - Seeing all the Bengals fans down there was a blast. I like being the tiger stripe team. It makes for some fun fan attire.

Chiefs and 49ers

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Beating the Steelers, who are, indisputably, the worst people alive, is always a great time. I will never tire of it. That field was absolute trash and the NFLPA should not allow their members to play on it.