Jon Joseph

Great take! At least the departing guys, to my knowledge, are not being beheaded or knifed in the back on the way out?

Ah, Texas. All hat and no cattle.

And I also dreamed of going 4-4 in the SEC? BTW - Bama just signed the No. 1 RB in the portal. Kid from Georgia Tech.

HATS OFF TO HERBERT. And Tom Brady making the Pro Bowl at his age? Amazing.

Nix ran Dillingham's O at Auburn. Bo knows Dillingham's O.

If he is the best QB in the QB room he definitely should start. If he wants to play 2 years he has 2 years of eligibility left. Nix played his best ball at Auburn this season and also played well his frosh season under Coach Dillingham, Oregon's new OC. How many QBs in the QB room have a win over Alabama? 1. Bo Nix. Brown started against and defeated 1 top 25 team. Nix has numerous wins over top 25 teams, including a win over the Ducks. And comparing Nix stats-wise to Brown? Brown faced a much lower level of competition in the ACC than Nix saw in the SEC. I believe QB recruiting from the portal will be a norm and not an exception. The Pac-12 has QBs coming in off the portal from Indiana, Purdue, UCF and Auburn. Spencer Rattler will definitely start for South Carolina next season. Slovis will be the starting QB at Pitt. The portal has put an entirely different spin on QB recruiting. So much so that to bring in a guy like Nix and not start him could ding future QB recruiting from the portal. The guys in the QB room in 2021 could not beat out Brown. Perhaps this is due to the HC being totally risk adverse but I don't know why any HC and OC would not start the best player. Hot shot QBs come out of HS all the time and do nothing in CFB. Perhaps the guys in the room in 2021 were overrated? But only 1 thing matters. The best guy has to start at every position on the field.

I just watched the tape of UTSA vs Sab Diego State and could not help but wonder the number, if any, of Pac-12 teams that could defeat UTSA or SDS? These teams looked organized, aggressive, guys firing off the LOS and going up tempo when it made sense. I don't know if there is coach other than Mario who took less advantage of his roster?

EXACTLY! Spot on post. I was going to reference these 'everyone gets a trophy bowl' audiences vs the audience for regular season NBA games. Thank you for doing same for me.

I think my friend that at least at the college level the bills proposed in Congress and the Alston decision by the Supreme Court have been met. In other words, don't mess with a player's ability to capitalize on his own NIL. And today? There really is no agency in control. So we have pay for play, unfettered free agency, roster tampering and millions of dollars falling down on coaches who have not been head coaches and coaches like Tucker and Cristobal who are barely over .500 for their career as head coaches. When it comes to roster tampering you don't have to talk with the player, you talk with his now allowed agent. There is a single commissioner for the NFL. There is a draft in inverse order of finish. There is no CFB control of agents; agents must be approved by the NFL. There are contractual restraints on free agency. In the NFL, Jacksonville gets the same media financial rewards as does the New York Giants. BTW, the top running back in the portal from Georgia Tech just signed with Bama. I'm shocked. In 2021, Bama's top tackler and top receiver came from the portal.

What entity will be around to do the sanctioning? P5 and perhaps G5 when it comes to CFB will soon be an entity unto itself. The issue then will be whether 'someone' can rein in these NIL deals without violating the Supreme Court's decision in Alston?

Thanks Mike, all great thoughts. A+M has not won a division title since joining the SEC but Jimbo hit it out of the park with this recruiting class that will likely only get better in February? Eligibility? Chance to be brought up to a parent NFL team and then be sent down? 6 years to play 4? Have to complete the equivalent of 2 years of JC credits is 4 or 5 years? I don't know how it will be formally and finally structured, but I do know that it will be about the Benjis.

IVY LEAGUE? They do it through huge endowments. The stands except for the rivalry game, Harvard vs Yale, Dartmouth vs Princeton, are empty. But like Stanford that backed off on cutting non-revenue sports, the Ivy League does not have to worry about CFB paying for the non-revenue sports.

COMPLETELY SPOT ON! IMO, the 3rd terrible decision by the 'leaders' of the Pac-12, following up being sold on the 'need' for CFB to have a champ decided on the field and throwing the Rose Bowl in for crickets, then launching a network without a media partner and all distribution agreements in place, came this baffling decision not to expand. This decision came after the SEC did the dirty work. The SEC poached TX and OK . The Pac-12 could have been a savior for many a remaining B12 team. Instead, the Pac-12 formed an alliance that will add a P5 OOC game every year but a home game only every other year. Would adding OK ST, TX TECH, TCU, HOUSTON, KS, K ST, Iowa State and Baylor immediately drop additional money to the Pac-12's bottom line? Probably not. But the conference would have increased its market size, added the significant Dallas and Houston markets and WIPED OUT a P5 competitor in the process. The folks who made this decision avoided strategic thinking. They looked at the immediate return on investment and said 'no' to expansion. I would expect this kind of 'thinking' from Scott. But I thought that media savvy guy GK, would have looked long term and not short term? These schools would not only have lifted the conference in CFB but also CBB. Perhaps added enough subscribers to save the network? Perhaps added enough market share so FOX would have come on board as the owner, operator, distributer of the network? Plus, for the most part even at Kansas, fans show up to watch the home games. What's even more baffling is that the conference made this decision after the new commissioner said AAU membership would not be a necessary requirement for membership. What does GK now have to sell to the media companies in the upcoming new media negotiations? How about SSDD?

Obviously, the SEC is afraid to take on an Alliance member ACC football team? Seriously, I am afraid this could be the first cancellation of many?

Thanks for the great comment. The problem? Without football how will the non-revenue sports be funded?

I do know that Nebraska set a dubious record in 2021 by losing 9 games by 1 score! Mario had all the 1 score game good fortune in 2021.

What 'boundaries' are left to be pushed? Via NIL 'deals, you can recruit today by offering pay-for-play? Seems to me the only boundary left is how much you are willing to pay for a given "student-athlete?"

AMEN. And for some silly reason back then you had to be far better than 6-6 to go to a bowl game. Not only did the best players not opt out. But the top NFL picks played in the All-American Game vs the defending NFL champ. I cop to being angry over the way money has so altered CFB and how badly the Pac-12 has been managed.

Great take. With the decision in the Alston case I expect that very shortly the P5 conferences at least, will break away entirely from the NCAA when it comes to football and establish their own rules, regulations and general governance of the sport.

Charles, great questions and ponder points. Your article asking whether 'us fans' matter anymore was very much on my mind when composing this article. Clearly, my idea of a Super League may never come to fruition? But CFB is in an arm's race. How many institutions will be willing to spend the money to be able to compete at the highest level of CFB? 2 of our Pac-12 'brothers' have already answered this question. CU lost its coach to the B1G and WA ST lost its HC to the SEC.

I think the 'portal' for the Super League will disappear. The player's will be employees of the Licensee and will sign, or their parents/guardians will sign, if they are under age to commit to a contract, a contract limiting a player's option to leave for another team. One point of a Super League will be to cement rosters.

Thanks Logger. I played D3 football and hockey. We played for the love of the game and for the love of one another. I do expect that with the coming of a Super League, many the school may go the Ivy League/D3 route and have a football team but with very limited recruiting and no scholarships.

So sorry to have kept you up my friend. Great walk through the past with the Rooney, Rozelle and MNF back in the early days of Monday Night. Of course, back then, many of us received 1 CFB broadcast and 1 NFL broadcast on a given weekend. I know this hard for younger readers to fathom. So, MNF was much watch TV. Today, with TV saturated with games, I only watch if I have an interest in one or both teams playing ball. Spot on. It is about the MONEY. CFB was headed for consolidation, pay-for-play, etc., when the commissioners of the various conferences agreed with SEC Commissioner, Ray Kramer, that we need settle the championship on the field. Thus the BCS and now this BCS x 2. The rise of the SEC. The decline of the Pac-12. I'm closing in on 75 and I'm sorry, I just do not love the game as I once did.

When you consider that CFB has been played for well over 100 years the changes in the last few seasons are to say the least, dramatic. Spot on. A Super League will be a 'professional' league. Seems to me to only be the end of hypocrisy around CFB that we see today. Hypocrisy? Mike Leach calling out players for opting out of bowl games when many coaches, Riley, Kelly, Cristobal are doing the same. One difference, these coaches have already 'been paid.'

It will be interesting to see how many ASU and Wisconsin fans will show up for the Las Vegas Bowl. Phoenix to LV is a pretty easy drive but do ASU fans care enough to show up? With the 'Vegas Package' being pitched to Wisky fans and the game being played the evening before New Year's Eve, I think many Badgers fans will attend this game? Las Vegas and not San Antonio is where the Pac-12 should be sending its 2nd best team.