Nevada Dawg

And a major reason the North was historically dominant in the 40s, 50s, 60s and until the mid-70s was segregated football in the South with the top Black athletes gravitating to the Big-10, the Big 8, Penn State, Notre Dame and other northern football powers. Th major rise of the SEC came as many more black athletes stayed home when member schools integrated.

I remember posting on more than one occasion that NIL would level the playing field. I just never expected it to happen as quickly as it has. Now if only the 18-team B1G could find a way to level the playing field a little better intra-conference. Recently Ohio State's Caleb Downs was asked the difference in playing an SEC schedule vs. a B1G schedule (remember he played, and played very well, at Alabama his first year). He said exactly what I thought he'd say remarking that you really only needed to be in top form for 2-3 of the 9-Game B1G contests to prevail. He then remarked that in the SEC you better be on your toes always as you are going to face "DUDES every game!" That is a bit of an overstatement but still truer of the SEC than the B1G IMHO.

Oh hell no!

They really do resemble each other on the sideline don't they?

I have to say I don't know. I am as mystified as you are but they always seem to have excellent receivers to take up any slack.

Oklahoma proved tonight that they suck playing with a sizable lead. The biggest play of the game IMHO came in the 2nd Quarter when Mateer, facing a 3rd and 3 around midfield, spun away from pressure and threw ACROSS HIS BODY to a receiver 20+ yards down field when he had 10-15 yards of unoccupied green grass in front of him. Had he not committed this egregious brain fart and simply tucked the ball and taken the easy 8-10 yards and the first down, he'd have put his team in FG position and likely been in position to improve on his 17-3 lead. What happened? The stop put a charge in the Bama offense and before you knew it, they marched down the field to cut the lead to 7. Plus OK quit pressuring Simpson and let him pick apart their zone defense. Really the game was never the same from that point on: a complete turn around. Will Bama compete with Indiana. It will not surprise me in the slightest. However, because the opponent is Bama, this is one of the very few times I will root for a B1G team other than OBD to win a playoff game.

Well I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the second pick and headed to Las Vegas. On the other hand 50 million big ones with half of that up front, properly invested, will be worth a whole lot more down the road than whatever NIL Oregon can come up with. As I financial consultant (which honesty compels me to admit that I am not) I'd clearly have to advise Dante to take the money and run. That is a no-lose proposition even if Dante never starts a game in the NFL.

I always respected this guy and his teams. I heard this Alabama lineman (an All-American) tell a story about playing Utah in one of the New Years Day bowls in a year after the Tide had won the Natty. He said Coach Saban didn't like the way they were practicing leading up to the game telling them "You better be getting your heads on straight or this man's team will kick your rear-ends!" They scoffed, went to the game, and got their rear-ends kicked. I think it is likely Whit would succeed In Ann Arbor but believe he is really retiring.

Well at least you are not the bear-er of bad news.

At some point I think it would be reasonable for the P4 conferences to tell Notre Dame to join a conference or face the very real prospect of not being scheduled by teams in the the P4 leagues. Probably ND would opt for the ACC--if I am not mistaken, they are already there in basketball and perhaps other sports as well. They could probably retain their private network, at least to some degree. I don't think the SEC required Texas to completely give theirs up. In so doing ND would have to poop or get off the pot and earn their way into the dance rather than relying on any preferential treatment which will become stale real quickly in the modern era.

Even so, you have to wonder why so many FSU guys opted out. I want to remind you that their opponent, Georgia, also got snubbed that year. They had one loss by 3 points in the SEC Championship game while missing their two most electric offensive players (Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey, both of whom tried to go and just couldn't). But the Dawgs didn't whine. They showed up , played, and dominated, no surprise with so many Seminoles sitting home. Pride stimulated them to show up and FSU still hasn't recovered from the shellacking. IMHO, paid players should not be allowed to desert their team because their feelings are bruised.

Well I would sure as hell hope that if Dante declares he won't go to the Raiders. With Tom Brady as a Raiders minority owner, you can be sure that he would want to select whomever he thinks is best qualified to run a pro set offense. But I also think he is smart enough to recommend signing a decent free agent under whom a high draft choice QB could learn under for a year or two. I don't know the back-up QBs, but I do know in the event of a Dante injury Lanning will go with whomever gives the Ducks the best chance to win. That as always Kirby's rationale and the Dawgs were lucky to have a talented (but game inexperienced) QB in Gunner Stockton to plug in and rally the team, which was behind Texas, to a win in the 24 SEC Championship game. That worked because the rest of the team loved Gunner and played their butts off for him in that game in a way they didn't for Carson Beck (that's a long story). I am sure CDL knows the guy the Ducks would be most likely to rally around and that's who would get the nod. True, Gunner didn't pull off a playoff win against Notre Dame last year, but he was hardly the reason Georgia lost that game. And hey, the quarterfinals of the CFP is a tough challenge for ANYONE who is making their first start in college football. So let's hope that Dante remains healthy. Go Ducks!

Bama at Autzen I'd agree with but man, Tech is hot and are going to be a very tough out for anyone I fear.

All reports out there indicate that the parents (especially mama) were all Dawg. They love their son and will get behind him, but mama was impressed with the care Mike Bobo took in developing a #1 NFL pick (Matt Stafford) and was confident that he could do it again with Jared. Part of that development had been easing Matt into the starting role late in his first year and not immediately throwing him to the SEC wolves. Jared had better be ready because he will get baptized early without the benefit of all those senior Vandy starters that Diego enjoyed. Given all the hero ball Jared got to play against inferior high school competition (much like Arch Manning) Jared may believe he is ready to handle anything. I guess we will see how that will work out.

From my perspective the Bye is preferable. At #3, Georgia was set up for that. They gain nothing by playing Alabama in the SEC title game (without their all-SEC center no less), and should they lose after having to play this extra game, they could possibly fall far enough to be on the road in the first round of the playoffs. That would be a severe penalty for the "honor" of playing for the SEC Championship IMHO.