My good Ducks friends, please forgive me for Playing It Forward on the cusp of Week 1. But if I do not keep old grey matter circulating, I will not be able to make it through the first half of Gators (first out-of-region road trip in 38 years. UF lost at Syracuse) at Utah. I can only imbibe so much Expresso mixed with IPA. And my Barista spouse calls it a night before I do. 

 

When it comes to kick-off times, I miss the Left Coast.

 

I am adopting the Charles Fischer 'Easy-Peasy' solution for all sports other than football and men's and women's basketball. 

 

West - Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, OREGON, UCLA, USC, Washington

 

East - Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, Wisconsin

 

For football, and men's and women's basketball, and because I can still divide 18 by 3 and come up with 6, I like the following format. This would give broadcast partners a lot of flexibility when it comes to 4 cross-pod games. (Ohio State vs. Michigan would be a protected game.)

 

2023 AP Poll preseason college football rankings are shown for ranked teams.

 

West - Minnesota, Nebraska, OREGON (15), UCLA, USC (6), Washington (10)

 

Central - Illinois, Iowa (25), Michigan (2), Michigan State, Northwestern, Wisconsin (19)

 

East - Indiana, Maryland, Ohio State (3), Penn State (7), Purdue, Rutgers.

 

A pretty fair, IMO, distribution of football talent. The last regular season game would feature a matchup of the 3 pod winners and the best wild card team; the winners play in the conference champ game.  Hello, TV ratings! 

 

Again, mea culpa but I am interested to see better ideas from Ducks fans.

 

GO UTES! MUSS Florida Up! A win over the Gators will help elevate OREGON's SOS when the Ducks win in Salt Lake City.

On 8/31/2023 at 1:43 PM, Jon Joseph said:

 

 

GO UTES! MUSS Florida Up! A win over the Gators will help elevate OREGON's SOS when the Ducks win in Salt Lake City.

 

 

T-Minus 1 hr. 47 minutes till the actual real start of college football. Zero week had zero interesting games. I'll look past your statement above because I get why you want your future opponent to be as highly valued as possible, not that anyone in the SEC would ever do such a thing🤥.  We have the legendary Graham Mertz under center. That tough Utah defense has no idea what is coming from this future Gator legend/former Badger castoff 😉.