noDucknewby

OK this is really screwed up. Playing in a conference championship game should be a reward, not a penalty. Under this scenario it would be better to be ranked #3 at the end of the season and play #8. This is just retarded. A series of play-in games makes a certain amount of sense, so how about we just do away with the CC games and have 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7 and so on. Higher ranked teams need to be rewarded, not penalized.

I'm drinking the Arch Manning Kool-Aid, but other than him I give this list a great big meh.

From a fan's perspective I'd call it a qualified success. For the bean counters I'd call it a home run. To quote Pink Floyd, "We're so happy we can hardly count." Clearly the seeding process needs to change when all four conference champs lose their first game. Granted it's a small sample size, but when your #1 ranked team has arguably the most difficult path, then the process is fundamentally flawed. OK I'm now King of the CFP, here's what I'd do: 1. Top five Conference champs get guaranteed spot, not seed, similar to March Madness. The 12 teams are selected and are seeded by rank. 2. The quarterfinals are played on campus. Yeah I know this hurts the Rose Bowl and the other former NY6 bowls, but the scheduling could be restructured so that the semi-finals are played on New Year's Day. I know it's tricky, but starting the season a week earlier is the simplest fix. There's already a handful of games played in week 0 as it is. 3. The top four seeds get a bye AND home field advantage for the quarter finals. The elimination round is played the week after the conference championships, then a break before the quarterfinals. And somehow or other rectify the massive payday ND gets to hog if they make the playoffs. Every other team in a conference has to split the take with the other members..

Wow I guess I had no idea he wasn't already in. A force of nature for sure--nobody could block him, often not even double-teams. Congrats Haloti, one of my favorite Ducks of all time.

Ultimately it comes down to Lanning, this is HIS defense. I'm not much of an Xs and Os guy, but it was pretty clear from the start that our D was constantly out of position. Getting beat by a superior athlete 1-on1 is bound to happen, but with a talent like J. Smith you have to bracket him like Texas did (or whatever schematic advantage that actually works). Congrats to coach K. his defenses are always really well coached. Not saying that automatically gives you the win, but if JS has a game like he did against us you have NO chance. IMHO if Lanning and Lupoi can't put this together, then DL needs to bring in a defensive guru and let him run his own system. Lupoi's seat is definitely warm and I would hate to see him go, but damn he is getting paid a ton of money so he needs to do better than our last two games.

IMHO Michigan and fuskies are ranked too high, Illinois and Indiana too low. My top 5 would be: 1. Ohio St. 2. (tie) Oregon/Penn St. 4. Michigan 5. Indiana or Illinois Sleeper to watch: Nebraska, I think Raiola is going to be really good in his second year. Boy there are a lot of dregs in the bottom half of the conference though.

Fans are just delirious sometimes. Texas' last championship was in 2006 under Mack Brown, but Sark has only gotten them to the final four two years in a row and some want to show him the door? Of course the only unqualified successful season is a national championship, but seriously Sark took a dumpster fire and made them title contenders. Eye roll.

I'm with you on this, regardless of all the smoke about SOS the teams with the fewest losses got in this year. How was BSU's strength of schedule? The only good team they played (apologies to UNLV) was Oregon. And how did Alabama's SOS serve them with three losses? At some point a 3-loss team will get in (probably via a conference championship) but other than that hanging an extra potential loss only makes it that much harder to make the playoff.

Point taken, we all agree the current seeding method stinks. Good seeding yields the highest probability that the two best teams meet in the finals. Clearly not the case this year.

Yeah sure if we lost a close one maybe you could say we got hosed. The way we played we probably wouldn't have beaten the 12 seed anyway. To me it's not that we lost, it's how we played. Not sure how that really changes with the opponent that much. They're all still playoff teams. I know what my old football coach said about excuses.

How do you blame total system failure on one component? This team was just not prepared, period. That's on Lanning.

I'm just not sold on Lupoi. I guess we'll have more to compare when tOSU goes up against Texas' stout defense. Let's face it, Chip is still an offensive genius and in this game Lupoi just didn't have any answers. Chip played him like a fiddle. It seems the Buckeyes are really hitting their stride and it's possible they shred everybody.

I always say the same thing after a bad loss. No matter how bad we feel as fans the players feel way worse. After all they're the ones that put in all the work and then got the crap beat out of them. I also like to put it in these terms: If at the beginning of the season we were told we would finish 13-1 as B1G champs with wins over Michigan, tOSU and Penn St plus smoking the rodents and fuskies, most of us would be ecstatic. Perspective is hard.

Still digesting this one (gag), but that showing is just a head-scratcher to me. This team was just not ready for the moment. Where to you really begin to point out our shortcomings in this one? Defense was constantly out of position, the offense was stagnant (especially the O-line) and we couldn't even get a decent punt off. I don't have the answers about what happened to our defense, but if my math is correct we gave up 79 points in our final two games. I'm not feeling really confident in Lupoi right now. How is it that a 13-1 season with B1G championship now feels like a total disaster? wth?! Oh well, the skiing's great this year and at least I can watch the rest of the playoff without feeling like I did yesterday.

Assuming this is accurate: College football NIL collective leaders for 2025: NCAA estimates nation's top-25 spenders Oregon is 19th in NIL expenditures at $10.6 million. Those whiney Doe-eyes are #2 at $20.2 million, almost twice as much. Just sayin'.

It's a brand new season and I'm going with Kirby Smart as the biggest threat, with the caveat that the status of Carson Beck is questionable. Regardless, he's beaten Texas twice in critical games and damn near came back in the Bama game. Also don't sleep on Dabo, he's got the most playoff experience and he shouldn't be here, but yet he is. From a personnel standpoint, Texas should probably be biggest threat, but Kirby's already beaten them twice. Still don't want to play tOSU again, they have at least as much talent as anyone and mega motivation to knock us off if they get the chance. I don't really fear Penn State, our defense won't look like that again.

Yep that may be the bigger issue, total lack of leadership.

I don't necessarily disagree, just saying it doesn't happen until after the playoffs. I always attach more credibility to actual quotes from the decision makers than some random online source.

Sorry not buying it at this time when they're most likely headed to the playoffs. Also saw another recent link for vote of confidence from their AD that contained an actual quote: Ohio State AD Ross Bjork issues strong support for football coach Ryan Day WWW.DISPATCH.COM Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork told The Dispatch on Sunday that football coach Ryan Day has his full support despite the loss to Michigan. An early exit from the playoff though and I think it might happen.

I'm STD of the Sanders' dog and pony show. Of course he's a show boat, look who his coach is. That said, he's a unique player and the Heisman voters love dynamic, flashy players. Jeanty is impressive for sure, I just don't see many east of the Rockies voting for him and his numbers are somewhat inflated because of MWC opponents. Gabriel, like Nix, is "just" a really solid, cerebral team leader. Unfortunately that's not what draws Heisman votes.

Classic circular reasoning: 1. All these 2-loss SEC teams deserve to be ranked because the SEC is so tough. 2. This proves that the SEC is the toughest conference because they have the most ranked teams. And don't get me started on how worthless the ESPN strength of schedule rankings are, now who is their biggest broadcast partner?

No doubt I'm pulling for Indiana. A second tOSU loss puts them in lower bracket and maybe we don't have to deal with them again. I still think we can beat them, but they would be motivated and dangerous. IF Indiana beats tOSU convincingly in the Shoe, then sure it's possible they overtake us in the rankings. Doesn't matter we'd have to beat them anyway in the B1G Championship. That said, my gut tells me there's no way Indiana gets the #1 ranking from where they currently sit at #5. We still have the BSU win (who'da thought it would matter at the time?) and they should already be ranked ahead of Penn State which tells us what the committee thinks about them.

OK I'll state the obvious, the jury's still out on this one. We should see what the final seedings are before we start screaming bias. THAT SAID, ESPN and their shills are already lobbying hard for the inclusion of a 3-loss SEC team because "the conference is so tough, blah blah blah". Never mind that while we were in a dogfight at Camp Randall, Alabama was playing Mercer (Mercer?!) at home. You've got to be kidding me. Yes the SEC is finally showing a little parity, the same trait that branded the Pac-12 as "weak". Let's face it, there's a BIG (pun intended) gap between the top four in the B1G and the rest of the 18-team conference. In the SEC you can probably make an argument for five or six teams; too bad for them, they all can't (and shouldn't) go.

An obvious take doesn't get many clicks. If he states something contrary to popular opinion and is wrong nobody cares, but if he's right then he looks like Carnac the Magnificent.