Jon Joseph

I am so sick of SEC teams that lose bowl games blaming the loss on the SEC team not caring about the result because the game was meaningless. Horse manure!

I do love you even though there will never be another ewe.

Perhaps? However, first Oregon has to receive a B1G offer with the media money not being as big as the 16 B1G members in 2024 will receive. As noted above, if given the choice and both will have a vote, both SC and UCLA for competitive reasons and UCLA to eliminate the Cal tax will prefer Cal and Stanford to be added and not Oregon and UW. Will B1G leaders if they look west look more at viewership numbers or academics? Easy answer when it comes to the SEC and not so easy an answer with the B1G. One thing for certain, I do not think Oregon will be playing UCLA in the football playoff even with a 12-team field. UCLA will not win a B1G football title or finish in the top 3 of the B1G.

Great take, But when you bring in better talent development is less important. On your list, I give J Smith the #1 ranking as being the best at coaching guys up. Then, I'd have Whit #2. Sark? When has Sark ever coached guys up? UT's performance season after season despite its roster ranking is embarrassing. The 2022 UT team was more up and down than a yo-yo and lost to many teams with a far lesser roster ranking. Recruiting is a big part of the game, from both high school and the portal but one of the hardest words in the dictionary to live up to is 'potential.'

Yes, the bugaboo of preseason polls but unfortunately the pesky 1st Amendment and $ means said polls will not go away. Last season the Pac finished with the same # of top 25 regular season ranked by the playoff committee as did the SEC with 6. This season at least 5 and perhaps 6 Pac-12 teams will be ranked in the AP preseason Top 25 and will play 1 more conference game than the SEC. The Pac has more of a chance to cannibalize itself in 2023 than does the SEC. Georgia doesn't play a team with a chance to beat it before tripping to TN in November. It will be different in the SEC W no doubt, with Bama and LSU and the other 5 SEC W teams are not layups. I expect UGA will go 12-0 and LSU and Bama 11-1 in the regular season with LSU winning in Tuscaloosa to rematch against UGA in the title game where UGA will prevail. Unfortunately, FWIW, I do not see any Pac-12 team finishing with fewer than 2 losses.

Terrific take. A 12-0 Cincinnati did make the playoff as an AAC member and UTSA is now an AAC team. I think a 12-0 AAC member would at least have a shot at the Final 4 and if we had a 12-team field in 2022 both CUSA champ UTSA and Sun Belt champ Troy would have been in the field. I don't see OR ST going 11-1 without the opportunity to win the Pac title and finishing 12-1. As SEC oriented as the playoff committee is it will not take a 9-3 or 10-2 LSU that did not win the SEC over a 12-1 Pac conference champion. In the 4 team playoff to date, it has been 2 strikes and you are out for every conference. No school with 2 losses has made the Final Four but this will obviously change when the field goes to 12 teams. With the top 6 conference champs in the field, I expect we'll see a G5 champ with 3 or even 4 losses in the field. Why it will be imperative for the at large teams to be seeded 5 through 8 and have the attendant home game. If the committee doesn't value such things as playing 9 instead of 8 conference games the SEC will place 3 teams in the field season after season. As to BCR mattering over a team's record? Come On Man! Texas has had the best roster in the B12 for years. How many playoffs has TX been to? ZERO. What difference does your roster make compared to on-field results when it comes to receiving a playoff invitation? Cincinnati and TCU both made the playoff field. Neither with a BCR. If the committee follows Pete's take, the playoff will be over come 2026. BTW, does the quality of the roster have anything to do with the NFL playoff? NO. But of course, the NFL playoff is, although oriented to divisions, dependent upon wins and losses. If the 12-team playoff is rigged based on roster strength simply give the SEC champ a Natty. There will be upsets in the 12-team field. The Pats undefeated in the regular season lost to a far lesser NY Giants team in the Super Bowl I hope this guy's take is as bogus as the report of Pat McAfee being paid $17M a year. If not, come 2026 let the SEC hold its own playoff.

The B1G media deal is now down $5M per year and rumored to be closer to $10M a year; less than represented to UCLA and USC when they went B1G. UCLA drew Michigan as one of its permanent opponents. UCLA football travels over 15,000 miles this season. OK kind of, for football but for non-revenue sports! And you can bet that Cal administrators will be lobbying for a hefty 'Calimony' tax payment. Especially in light of the Comcast foul-up and the consequent financial hit. Hats off to Cal for finally building an on-campus basketball facility but this has to be paid for. Of course, the Pac conference is not going to reject UCLA and the LA market returning to the fold. And of course, the leaders in the B1G are not clueless when it comes to the LA schools' travel issues. The former president of Oregon now at Northwestern has made public note of this issue. But will the B1G come with an offer for Oregon and UW or for Cal and Stanford which I'm certain the LA schools would prefer and notwithstanding Jimmy Lake's POV, have academic bona fides that the two Northwestern schools, although both are AAU members, do not. And does FOX, having laid off a number of folks at its news affiliate and/or B1G junior partners, CBS and NBC, have the money and the interest to add additional West Coast schools? The last chair in the CFB game of realignment musical chairs has yet to be moved.

Woad Blue, good take, thank you. You are spot on that before the BCS the SEC had a number of championship wins but did not dominate like it does today. Then SEC Commissioner Roy Kramer sold the idea of college football 'needing one true champion' and the BCS and taking the game nationally monetized the sport to where coaches are paid $12M a year and every SEC game including Mizzou vs South Carolina is a game like no other seen in CFB. If the Committee truly values SOS when the field expands, which I question, Pate could well be wrong. And is wrong about SEC conference schedules. The SEC is, like most college conferences, top-heavy. No one, even Wildcats fans, believes that Kentucky will win n SEC championship which is one reason the SEC stayed at 8 conference games. Mark Stoops needs his bowl bonus at a time when non-playoff bowl games are becoming more irrelevant. Think we saw a lot of guys sitting out bowl games before? Wait until 2024. The SEC can spin this we are the best and we do not have to play more than 8 conference games all it wants. But what Just Means More is even more money the SEC will score from the expanded playoff. And I'm sorry but playing New Mexico State in the penultimate game of the regular season at home is nowhere close to the competition between Oregon and Oregon State and the physical drain both teams face in the 9th conference game of the season, every other year on the road. The Athletics' Nicole Auerbach recently pointed out that if the Committee doesn't take the number of conference games played into account something is very wrong. Not only when it comes to the SEC but also for ACC teams playing 8 conference games, at least those which do not play Notre Dame in a given season. What Michigan graduate Nicole did not note is that yes, the B1G is staying at 9 conference games but Ohio State and Michigan will not be playing Penn State every season. As of today, these are the 3 B1G teams most likely to make the playoff. The good news is that we have a 12-team 'tryout' for 2 years, 2024/25 before the current media deal with ESPN expires. At that time, if the SEC and B1G put 3 teams in the field in both seasons, The ACC, B12, and Pac conferences should consider ending shoveling money in the direction of the 2 conferences that don't need it and holding their own post-season tournament. Less money? You know it but as long as the NCAA 85 scholarship cap stays in place there will be many good high school players available who do not commit to the B1G or the SEC. The BCS hosed over Oregon in 2001 and USC on at least 3 occasions often in favor of an Oklahoma team that was shredded by SEC teams. So, what did the Pac do? It agreed to the BCS X 2 and further lined the SEC's pockets. This should not happen again if there is a 'Power 5' and the Power 2 don't expand to the point where all of the big-time teams are playing in the B1G or the SEC. I do not agree with Pate's take but his point will likely be proved by a Committee that will slobber all over the SEC like the baseball committee just did and the B1G like the basketball committee does year after year.

Hats off to the Ducks. And hats off to Rob Mullens (a guy I have likely too often dissed previously) for bringing Coach W in from Purdue. Heck of winning streak, a conference championship, and a regional title in Dixie are all great accomplishments. In Boston we used to say, for decades: Wait Until Next Year! I think it will be far shorter for Coach W to take Oregon to Omaha and win a national championship as he did as a player. Go Ducks!

I know that the conference has agreed, pending the media deal being finalized, to schools that make the college football playoff retaining a bigger piece of the pie. Unlike the ACC which is paying both CFB playoff teams and CBB Tournament playoff teams a bigger share of what they earn. I know conference survival comes first but the Ducks and UW had the leverage to get a bigger piece of the revenue pie and did not push their advantage to make more than for instance, The Cardinal and its empty gameday stadium. In the long run, this will make it easier for the B1G to add Oregon and UW at a media revenue discount. But when have the conference "leaders" ever played the long game? Larry the gift that keeps on giving, returned the conference to equal media shares when he added CU and Utah to save face from Texas giving him the stiff arm. SC in particular complained at the time and no one listened. And for GK not to be aware of the LA schools' angst and allow the B12 to get ahead of him media-wise after not pushing for adding B12 teams and putting the B12 to sleep, was simply vapid from a business POV. My guess? The LA schools leaving doesn't happen under a guy like Jim Delaney's watch.

The players on Dilfer's team are making NIL bank? Me thinks that Trent is confusing Birmingham with Tuscaloosa.

One wonders if the LA schools will adopt the John Madden approach and travel by bus. Over 15,000 miles each for the football teams in 2023 and this just in, non-revenue sports play a lot more games than the football teams.

But their travel agent in LA will be smiling like this cool cat. LOL!

The cord-cutting continues and Neil is one of the victims. Want to talk about media nonsense. Chris Fowler to his displeasure is making $3.5M a year. Yet it was reported that Pat McAfee will be paid $17M a year by Disney/ESPN. Righhhhhht. The SEC best be prepared for many of its games to be streamed. The future of sports broadcasting. And will games be broadcast on-site or from a stadium in Charlotte or Bristol? And will ESPN have the money to meet all of its broadcast obligations that go well beyond the deals with college football conferences? Do not laugh. Two Harvard dropouts almost took down IBM.

Happy, great take. Rufus should get the credit for the post on which I merely commented. Let's get together to recount all of the miserable business decisions made by conference "leaders" by commissions and omissions, going back to the days of Tom Hansen. I'm retired. If you are employed the time for the review will require you to take a week off. It's as if the folks in charge of the conference wanted to elevate the SEC and B1G while working their way toward Ivy League status. The LA schools were part and parcel of this ongoing decades-long fiasco and are escaping only due to an accident of geography and the desire of one network to injure another.

This take is not a diss on OOC scheduling but a take on the Texas Tech QB situation and Oregon meeting up with an old friend. Tyler Shough has been named Texas Tech's starting quarterback for the 3rd season in a row. Shough is 8-0 in games that he has started and finished at QB for Tech. Shough missed 4 games last season with a bad shoulder but came back and was the MVP of Tech's decisive Texas Bowl defeat of Ole Miss. In 2022 he helped Tech run the most plays from scrimmage in the G5/P5. This is Tyler's 6th season of college football! Shough played at Oregon for 3 seasons where he went 5-2 as a starter and led the team to a conference championship. No doubt Tyler will be fired up to face his old team.

Just another attack on the today's game. I don't see it stopping until much of the G5/P5 goes the route of the Ivy League/ Division 3. The recipients of NIL deals have to, of course, pay tax on the income. Now the payors won't be able to deduct the payment as a business expense? The lyrics to the Beatles' 'Tax Man' come to mind. This is in No Way intended to be a political statement. Don't 'these folks' understand that the baby is being thrown out with bath water? That these attacks on the college athletic model will hurt people of color and women the most? The Olympic sports medals for the USA will decline? SMH.

In this case, 2 out of 3 will be more than ain't bad. Go Ducks. And a blessing for all Forum members to have PA Duck back!

The B1G conference leaders acted with sense and purpose in restructuring the conference scheduling format when UCLA and USC come on board in 2024. 1st and foremost the B1G, unlike the ACC and the SEC, has to courage to remain at 9 conference games. Divisions are gone which will prevent B1G W division winners from being defeated, often handily, by the B1G E champion in the conference champ game. Tradition was upheld with, for example, Iowa having 3 permanent opponents while Penn State has no permanent opponents. Unlike the SEC, where Georgia has yet to play at Texas A+M, all 14 teams will play one another in a three-year time frame. The author does a terrific job of pointing out the winners and losers of this flex-fixed scheduling format. I am most happy to see UCLA among the losers. UCLA will be the Minnesota of B1G football. Along with USC, UCLA football will be traveling over 15,000 miles in 2024. UCLA also drew Michigan as its 2nd permanent opponent along with USC. Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan are also winners. No longer will these 3 have to face one another in every regular season. This makes all the sense in the world with a 12-team playoff coming in 2024. It's not hard to envision all 3 of these teams being in the playoff field. I hope the Pac will come up with this kind of conference scheduling (I still find it difficult to believe that Hanks and the conference maintained the Cali scheduling agreement in 2023 and gave the Trojans an idle week the week before the champ game) come 2024. Oregon - Oregon State and UW as permanent opponents makes sense as does elevating the date and time of the Oregon/UW game in recognition of this game being the conference's annual premier game. Utah, for example, would have one permanent opponent, CU. And vice versa for the Buffs. Hickey: Winners, losers and a big takeaway from the new B1G scheduling format SATURDAYTRADITION.COM Saturday Tradition's Alex Hickey breaks down the winners, losers and other takeaways from the Big Ten's new football scheduling... By the way, my congrats to the B1G do not extend to the illegitimate offspring at FOX.

Thanks for nailing this HORRENDOUS number. The dismissed network executives claim in their wrongful termination suit against the conference that they told Larry in 2017 about this 'accounting' problem and Larry swept it under the rug. It will be an all-time legal blunder if the conference does not cross-claim against Larry. D+O Insurance should cover the damages if Larry is found to have covered up. Also standing in line as a defendant should be the conference's public accounting firm. The only problem? A suit against Larry will expose the folks that Larry reported to as being morons; this is probably unfair to morons. And why would the conference have paid Larry a $1,5M severance bonus if there were any problems with Larry's conduct? Pac-10 athletic departments can ill afford this hit. See the financial problems publicly reported by Washington and Washington State. Not as big a number, around $2+M, or even close but add San Francisco premises restoration to this Comcast debacle. Why in the heck did the conference ever move out of Mountain View, CA.? Why was the network headquartered in San Francisco; I guess even the conference 'leaders' recognized that Honolulu was too far to go. BRUTAL!

All-time AP Top 25. Oregon is in Others Receiving Votes. SC and UW make the top 25. https://collegefootballnews.com/rankings/ap-poll-top-25-all-time-preseason-college-football-rankings

Gold: One for the ages — Ducks pull off biggest baseball win in almost 7 decades SATURDAYOUTWEST.COM The Ducks pulled off their biggest win on the diamond in almost 70 years with a 9-8 comeback over Oral Roberts in their Friday...

Thank you, NJ, for all of these great updates. Of course, not over until the name is signed on the bottom line; we all know 'commitment' has a different meaning when it comes to truly committing to a program.

Great game. But the best game I ever witnessed in person was the 1976 6th game between the Red Sox and the Reds at Fenway where in extra innings Carlton Fiske waved for the ball to stay fair as it cleared the Monster and won the game in a walk-off From Good Will Hunting - 'I didn't know that Pudge was going to hit a home run.'. Unfortunately, I was also in Fenway for game 7 when Doggy Perez hit a Bill Lee Moon Ball pitch out of the park as the Reds took the series.

What an SEC 9 conference schedule could look like using the 2024 and forward B1G scheduling agreement. How a hypothetical nine-game SEC schedule would look based on Big Ten's new 'Flex Protect Plus' model - CBSSports.com WWW.CBSSPORTS.COM The SEC is staying at eight games for now, but we're still pondering what an adjusted slate would look like