The Low Tide S2.E14 - Get ready to learn Reliaquest Bowl buddy

[00:00:00] Speaker A: WVUAFM Tuscaloosa. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Welcome into the low tide here on 90.7 the Capstone. Nicholas Persley, Elliot Miller, Adam Hambright here to talk, of course, about Alabama being left out of the college football playoffs in favor of smu. Obviously, SMU lost to Clemson in the ACC title game, giving the Tigers a guaranteed spot in the field. So then the real decision came down between SMU and Alabama and ultimately the committee did go with SMU over the Crimson Tide. Initial reactions Elliot, we'll start with you. [00:00:49] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that what I said on Twitter is the same way that I still feel very similar to yours, Nick. I know we'll get to that at some point. It's absolutely the right decision to make. I think. You know, I think I said on the show the path of least resistance. And obviously having SMU win over Alabama is a little bit of an easier pill to swallow than trying to argue, oh, well, we need to have an SEC team with three losses and it happens to be Alabama. And we did say that the conference championship isn't supposed to affect you, so you knew it was going to happen, especially after the game was really, really close at the end. I think had SMU just got him blown out or, you know, the easier path. SMU just actually wins a game because they're supposed to be the number one team in the acc. I think that this is kind of without a debate what's going, like, what was going to happen, but because they fought their way all the way back and for some boneheaded reason decided to let Clemson return that kick with like 20 seconds left. Not really sure when it went into the decision making over there, I think it was pretty hard to argue that that's the case. Now, do I necessarily, like, agree with the way that the committee, like, broke it down? No, I absolutely don't. And I think if anything, they need to really listen to what Saban had to say before they actually did the selection. If you're going to make comments about strength of schedule, you're going to make comments about the losses that teams have had, which was kind of the reasoning behind putting like, Alabama ahead of Miami to a certain degree. Like, oh, Miami had taken a couple bad losses. Alabama has the better wins, they have the better strength of schedule. Well, let's be honest here. SMU is not like, you know, they're putting up big numbers in that department and neither is Indiana. And quite frankly, what I think is kind of funny is that Indiana is immune to all of this criticism because they actually avoided having to play in their championship game. And that's the only reason that they're just chilling. Sitting there in this only opened the door because SMU had to go play an extra game. And realistically both of those teams, if this was the argument, both of those teams should have been like on the outside looking in and there should be other teams that were in like that four to five team bubble on the edge that were inside. So I don't know, I expected it. I don't think that, I think it's going to change like next year. I do not think that they're going to do the same situation again because it's a little bit messy and it's pretty clear that they don't really know what they're looking for. It seems like they're trying to do this case by case basis thing and it doesn't really work. But I think it's going to make a lot of people angry, the lack of transparency. [00:03:27] Speaker A: So yeah, I mean, you know, I was kind of like Elliot, like I figured that would not like Alabama would not be the one that actually got into the playoff. So as I'm watching the selection show, I kind of knew what was going to happen. The thing, I mean we've already talked about it before. SMU did not have, you know, the toughest schedule. And the one thing that some other conferences have brought up before is the fact that, you know, they always have the nine game conference schedule. Well, the ACC doesn't have that. They only have the eight game conference schedules. They still had four out of conference games just like the SEC did. SMU maybe not know, like maybe they can't get people to schedule, maybe they couldn't. But like they're out of conference. They played Nevada, a blow 500 team. They played Houston Christian, a below.500 team in a, in a definitely lower league. And then they did play BYU who they lost to. That was their one loss before Clemson and then TCU in 8 and 4 team that they, they did beat 66, 42. You know, it's not, you know, the worst out of conference schedule that I've seen. But you know, then you get into their conference, they didn't play Clemson, they didn't play Miami and they didn't play Georgia Tech in the regular season. They did play Clemson and then that was their second loss. So it's just looking at it, you know, they really didn't beat anybody of note. They didn't beat anybody to really tell me they should be in. I know Alabama didn't earn their way in either. But you know, even with, you know, the out of conference and people want to bring up, well, they played Mercer or they played, you know, Western Kentucky, Western Kentucky was in their conference championship game. South Florida was playing pretty well at the time. Also, you know, like in the future, Alabama has, you know, harder out of conference scheduling already. You know, set up like next year. You know, we don't know who's going to be good or not. But they're supposed to have Wisconsin and Tuscaloosa supposed to have a road game at Florida State. And now you have Greg Byrne basically saying we might start canceling some of those because if all that matters is the win column and not who you played and who you beat now, Alabama shouldn't have lost to Vanderbilt, shouldn't lost to Oklahoma. If they do either one of those things there in the SEC championship game, we don't have to worry about this. They didn't. But then once you start comparing it between SMU, who also didn't win the conference, no top 25 wins over the current top 25. They did have the win over Pittsburgh when they were ranked. Indiana, no wins over the current top 25. And then I think even Texas, no wins over the current top 25, which if we start talking about Texas should have been left out, then maybe you hurt the SEC argument. But you know, you have three teams that are in without any wins over current top 25 teams. You have Alabama left out. And I think the thing I hate the most about this bracket in general was the fact that you have these automatic qualifiers. And one, you know, all four of the top four seeds have to be conference champions. But then you also get another conference champion in there who in the final rankings, they said this is not a top 12 team, they are the 16th ranked team, but they get in. So I'm not even that mad at SMU getting in. I'm more mad that Clemson gets in ranked way outside the top 12. But since they're a conference champion, get in and you know, maybe they'll change it next year. I know next year is the last one that's under this contract, so maybe they might play it out next year with whoever's new on the. I don't know if it's the same exact committee they might have. I don't know if it's a completely new one or if they just rotate a couple people. But then by that next year it's definitely going to be changed because I don't think the SEC is going to sign off on anything close to the format they have here for the seating. [00:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So many different directions that I can go with this. So many different things to talk about. So many different concerns. I'll start with this. So first off, let me just say for the record, I fully believe that SMU deserves to go to the playoffs. Okay? Just 100%. They played very. The ACC championship game went from a game that was going to have to get turned off to a really quality, really exciting game with some great calls down there at the end. And unfortunately, they decide to let him run that kickoff back and give up a absolute bomb of a field goal shout out to the true freshman kicker from Clemson. Nail on that. I mean, you got to have some serious stones to do that. So quote, you know, shout out to him. You know. But what I also said was there. There were going to be consequences on either decision that you made. Okay? Either a, you pick Alabama and you devalue the conference championship games, which, you know, potentially, you know, you have no idea how that could have played out down the road. Maybe you would have seen the smaller conferences, you know, just not play conference title games at all so that they didn't have to take that extra risk, things like that. Or you do what they did, what they ultimately decided to do. You put SMU in and you pretty much throw strength of schedule out the window. You tell everybody that here's what matters. It matters that you win your football game. Like, of course, it always matters that you win, but it's just don't have that many losses. It doesn't really matter who you play, especially if you make your conference title game, which I think is just go ahead. [00:09:07] Speaker A: I think what's funny about that is if, like we're talking about, you know, if you. If you don't put SMU in, you devalue the conference championship game. I think they already devalued the conference championship games because one, you said it doesn't matter if you lose. It's just like at that point, it's just a glory game unless you're, you know, the Big 12. And that was. That was the only conference out of the power four where the loser did not get in. And then you really made the Big Ten and the SEC games almost meaningless because they already knew they were going to be in. And, you know, sometimes the loser of those games gets put up with a better situation in the playoff. We'll talk about that later. But I think that they're already devaluing it with the system as it is. Even if they had decided to leave SMU out of the playoffs. [00:09:51] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. And just also for the record, like, I do not like this playoff format. I think it's garbage. I think that you extremely devalue conference championships. I've said multiple times on this show, I don't even understand why we're playing them at this point. Just do it like basketball. Pick a regular season champion and then be done with it and go into the seating because it looks like there's just more risks than there are rewards for playing in these conference title games or playing them at all. So I want to get to the second part of that. So I talked about how, you know, they've devalued strength of schedule. Now doesn't really matter who you play. It just matters that you win your games. You know, just have as few losses as possible. And I said you need to be prepared for teams in the SEC and the Big Ten to cancel difficult non conference games, which is 100% a loss for anybody who enjoys college football. Like, I let me just read you some of Alabama's future non conference opponents next year, Florida State, Wisconsin. The year after that they play Florida State again. Then they've got a home and home against Ohio State, home and homes against Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech in the future. It makes zero sense. Based on the logic that we just saw from this college football playoff committee, it makes zero sense to play any of those games. What you should do is schedule cupcake out of conference games. And I'll go back over this in a minute when I talk about all the stuff that was going on with Greg Byrne and his Twitter and how he was getting absolutely attacked for no good reason. Basically just schedule cupcake non conference games. Focus all your energy on, you know, losing as few of your conference games as possible and like that. That should just. We're done with it. Like, there is no point to play teams outside of the sec. Yeah. [00:11:45] Speaker A: And you know, obviously we have, you know, we know all of Alabama's, you know, future opponents. We follow, like when they've scheduled them. Here's another one. And they didn't get left out of the playoff yet because it's so Georgia. Right. They got in the playoff, they won the sec. They haven't had the issue yet. We haven't heard anything from their athletic director maybe saying they'll reevaluate. But I just wanted to go look at their future schedule and I'll read you off two years. So in 2027, so they all, they already have the Georgia Tech game. Right. That that's going to be a road game at Georgia Tech. That's their end of the year rivalry. They had also scheduled a game at Florida State and Louisville to come in. Now maybe they'll be good, maybe they won't be. But that's, you know, three ACC opponents that you scheduled. And then in 2030 they had scheduled Clemson, they still have Georgia Tech and then they have Ohio State all in the same year. So you know, it's something to look forward like obviously Greg Burns, the only one that said maybe they'll reevaluate, but I wouldn't be surprised if Georgia also, like, maybe they think we don't want to take the chance. Those years of playing, you know, three Power 4 opponents in the out of conference and then going through an SEC schedule. [00:12:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it just makes no sense if you, if you're not going to get rewarded for those types of games because you know, obviously football is not basketball and the basketball you want to schedule difficult opponents because hey, the losses aren't really super important. You could take a couple losses, but if you get a big resume win, then that's, you know, that can be everything for you late in the year. So I want to talk about Greg Burns tweet, so I'll read it out now. So he said on Twitter basically right after the decision was made, disappointed with the outcome and felt we were one of the 12 best teams in the country. We had an extremely challenging schedule and recognized that there were two games in particular that we did not perform as well as we should have. We have said that we would need to see how strength of schedule would be evaluated by the College Football Playoff committee. With this outcome, we will need to assess how many powerful non conference games make sense in the future to put us in the best position to participate in the cfp. That is not good for college football. And then you know, he just does kind of a blanket statement about, yeah, you know, we're, we're happy with the coach, we're happy with the team. Like let's go take on Michigan and the Relia Quest Bowl. So a bunch of people like jumped on Greg Byrne because they're saying, oh well, Alabama had cupcake out of conference games this year. That's not what he's talking about. Like straight up, like the community note that was in there was like, oh, all of Alabama's losses came in conference play. They have one of the easiest non conference schedules. He is not talking about this season. He is very clearly talking about future seasons. Yes, Alabama did not play anybody exciting Non conference. But what he's saying is that all of these Big Ten and all these SEC schools are going to start looking at these non conference games. They say, well, they didn't really care about strength schedule. It didn't really impact them that heavily. So why would we take the risk and play these games which fans Want to see? 100%. Right? There's zero point in playing that game. Like, do you honestly think if we knew that this is how the playoff committee was going to look at things, is there even a slimmer of a chance that either Georgia or Clemson schedules that matchup at the beginning of the year? 00. They don't play it 100% like it. Just imagine if, if Clemson hadn't have had that Georgia non conference loss on their books. Right. Regardless. So if you were dunking on him for talking about how Alabama's non conference schedule this season was easy, like you completely missed the point. It just went straight over your head. And that's, that's one of my biggest problems with people on Twitter is they do not know, they do not understand what they're talking about and they just like yell into the abyss. Problems with Twitter. Maybe that, maybe that'll be a whole separate beef of the week. [00:15:53] Speaker C: Hey man, I think you're just talking about the fact that people are illiterate and just can't read and have basic reading comprehensions. [00:15:59] Speaker B: So yeah, 100%. [00:16:01] Speaker C: Hopefully that becomes a Twitter sound bite. [00:16:03] Speaker B: But we'll see. [00:16:04] Speaker A: We'll see. You know one thing, one thing about this whole thing and you know I mentioned it earlier how you know, Clemson gets in as the like the committee rated them the 16th team in the nation but they had to be in because they won that conference championship. And you know, you mentioned it, they lost to George. That was a 30 plus point loss. They also lost a to South Carolina. So they lost two out of conference games if they hadn't scheduled like South Carolina rivalry game. Georgia, they don't schedule that Georgia game. So they only have the two losses they're probably already in. They don't have to worry about winning that game because they've already said conference championship games don't matter because as long as you're in that top 12, we're not going to move you down. Now I think that the thing that I hate and this year it sounds like I just want Alabama in. And you know, part of that probably true, I wanted to go see him in some ball games besides the relia quest goal. But you know, you made a 12 team playoff and then you're not going to have a team that's in the top 12 in it because you made these automatic qualifiers because Alabama's ranked 11th. You said they're one of the 12 best teams in the nation, but you're not in the 12 team playoff. And, you know, maybe they wanted to make the conference championships matter more, but I just don't think the goal should be letting everybody in. Because you know what's going to be next year? Two teams outside the top 12, they win their conference championship. Now you're getting two top 12 teams just left out. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. And I will say I have, like one more big thought. Okay. Last year, something that was harped on at the end of the year is that it is the fourth best teams, not the most deserving teams. That's why Florida State got left out, and rightfully so, in my opinion. Right. But it's just there is no, like, consistency from the playoff committee. Week to week, year to year, you have seen different things be valued. And yes, I understand that that's part of it. That, you know the committee is going to change over time. But, you know, at some point we have to have an idea of like, okay, what does the committee value? Like, what should I be aiming to do, you know, especially when I'm building schedules, those sorts of things. And this is a complete 180 from what we did last year. Because if you look at this bracket, there are several teams in here who I can promise you right now, Alabama on a neutral field would be favored against 100%. And I understand. Right, 100, right. Yeah. And I understand that, you know, the games are not played. The games aren't played on paper, you know, 100%. And Alabama had some bad losses this year, but they also had arguably one of the best wins in the country over Georgia. So we have to, we have to consider what we're thinking of here. Are we thinking, like, what is this team at its strongest? Like, what does this team have the potential to do? Because I look at SMU and I say, right, like, if they were playing literally anybody else but Penn State, I would say they have zero chance. Like, zero chance. But because it's Penn State and James Franklin does not understand how to win meaningful football games, anything could happen. Right. Even. Even on the road. Right. But, like, there are several teams in here who, like, everybody's. And let me, let me be on the record, if this was to happen, I will take it all back. I'll go on the record. I'll issue A public apology to smu. SMU has zero chance to win the national title. Zero. There are several teams in this bracket that have zero chance of winning the national title. That's a problem. You want to put teams in who could actually win the damn thing. It's the whole reason why Florida State got left out. Yet last year, Florida State, everybody knew it. They watched them in the ACC title game against Louisville. I think if I remember they played terribly in that game. They said, well, Florida State just isn't Florida State without Jordan Travis. Okay? We can't put them in because they do not have a chance. Why are we not using the same logic here? Like it just makes no sense. SMU played two ranked opponents all year, Clemson and byu. They lost to BYU by three points. BYU has looked extremely shaky. They lost several games in a row, looked like they were in control of the Big 12. Completely fell out of it. Clemson got smacked by Georgia, a team that Alabama has a win against and the same Clemson team that South Carolina beat, who Alabama also beat. I just don't think like people going into this like the ACC title game said Clemson is overranked. They are not as good as they look yet. Like you know, we're just allowing like, oh, okay, smu, you can lose to this team who you know, if your ranking is true, right? If we think you're one of the best teams in the country, you shouldn't lose this game. But then you do. Like we have not seen SMU perform at a high enough level to win the national title. Right? If they had a big non conference win or they had a big win over, I don't know, maybe any of the good teams in the acc, which they all managed to dodge this year. Not their fault. If they had any kind of win like that. It would be even easier for me to say yes, SMU should be in because we've seen them perform on that level. We have seen Alabama at their peak. Lsu, Georgia, they have the potential to win a national title. SMU doesn't. We just have not seen that this year, which is one of my major problems with their inclusion. Now I'm not saying they didn't deserve to get in. Alabama should not have lost to a 6 and 6 Oklahoma team on the road and put up three points. Major, major problem, right? Just win the games and we're not having this discussion. If the playoff was how it should be, we would not be arguing over SMU and a three loss Alabama getting in the playoffs. Right? But this is where we're at the Committee kind of needs to make a decision of how they're going to evaluate these teams. They need to decide what they care about. Are we trying to determine who the best team in college football is or are we just putting the most deserving teams in? That's my thing. [00:22:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I think what you're describing is exactly what I said last week, and it's what I said earlier tonight already is a lack of transparency. It's not entirely clear what they're looking for, what they want. And obviously things change on a year to year basis in college football. But that doesn't mean that you can't have some sort of consistency throughout the year to year process. Like you have to have something that is actually the same that you keep going with. You can't do what you did last year and then this year completely renege on that. Now, I do have a feeling, and this is just a complete hypothesis, you can call me conspiracy nut, a crackpot on Twitter, if you will, but I think a lot of this stems from the fact is that last year Alabama was kind of thrown a bone getting put in. A lot of people were outraged on the fact that an undefeated Florida State team was not put in due to this, like, less deserving thing. And so now that they had the opportunity that they had to choose between Alabama and another team, they're like, well, we gave you that bone last year. This year you're not going to get it. And it kind of does feel like that to a certain extent. Now I have bigger issues with the bracket. Okay. And I'm sure we'll get into that later because I think it's a travesty the way that it's been done. But I digress. [00:23:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's almost like, it feels like, it's almost like, you know, when a ref misses, like a big penalty, like really early on, and then they give you one that they probably shouldn't have given you later on to kind of like make up for it. That's almost what this feels like. I don't know. Adam, thoughts? [00:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I agree with pretty much everything y'all said. Now for me, smu, you know, sure, they should be in, you know, this year with how everything worked out. Once again, like I said, my bigger issue was Clemson getting in just because of the conference champion when they're not seen as a top team. Now, for the SMU specifically, I don't remember if I actually said it in one of our shows. I know I was talking to a couple people before and I said, I Thought SMU in a couple of years would be up there with how NIL is and, you know, how much money they have over there in Dallas. And, you know, back in the 80s, before they got the college football death penalty, you know, they had four years of straight 10 win seasons, you know, had been, you know, up in the top 10 and, you know, they hadn't really had anything since. I mean, they had a couple winning seasons before they joined the ACC last year. They had over 10 wins in that season. And I thought in a few years, you know, they could be good with NIL and pulling people in. And then, you know, this year just happens to be, you know, a year where they don't really play many of the top teams in the conference. They were scheduled, you know, Florida State, when we thought Florida State might be good, you know, preseason top 10, turned out not to be, but, you know, acc, I guess we could say, was a little down this year and, you know, they want it and now they're in the playoff and, you know, now they got to go to Penn State. So, you know, I just. Some. Some things need to be changed. I wouldn't be surprised if SMU ends up in another playoff down the road and they'll be better suited for it, but this year I don't really think they match up well. [00:25:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And also, like, I just want to again, go on the record. I am not an SMU hater. I think they should have been in this year. I. I enjoyed watching them play in the ACC title game. It was very fun at the end. I'm just saying, like, I don't believe that they have the potential to win the national title. And I do not think that they're one of the best teams in college football. They might be one of the most deserving, but I. I just need some more consistency from the college football playoffs. So, anybody final thoughts, final word on this topic? [00:25:57] Speaker C: I feel like you'll hear my thoughts in a bit. Okay. [00:26:02] Speaker B: Okay, so. Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:26:07] Speaker A: Preview. [00:26:07] Speaker B: Nice little. Nice little segue. When we come back, we're going to talk about the bracket, we're going to talk about what we like about this playoff system, what we don't like. I have a feeling like there's going to be a lot more that we don't like. And we are going to predict the first round of the College Football Playoff when we come back, right here on 90.7 the Capstone. This show is a sports production of WVUAFM 90.7 the Capstone, a division of student media at The University of Alabama support us by leaving a review rating or following us on X at WVUAFMSports. Welcome back into the low tide here on 90.7 the Capstone. Nicholas Elliot, Adam here talking about the College Football Playoff bracket and all the matchups that were officially revealed on selection Sunday. You know, in the most anticlimactic type of way that, you know, ESPN loves to do it. It is a, it is a good product, I'll give them that. It is exciting. Gets your heart rate up. So obviously first year of the 12 team playoff, a lot of discussion has been had on the flaws of this system. Many, many people have, you know, talked about this for forever. But I'm interested to hear Yalls thoughts. You know what, what are some things that you like and you know, more likely what are some things that you don't like about this 12 team playoffs? [00:27:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I'll jump right into it. I think it stinks from top to bottom. Like it's, it's just atrocious. It's a travesty. There's really no other way to put it. Adam mentioned it earlier, you know, we have this automatic bid system and quite frankly it doesn't make a lot of sense. I also am kind of not digging the way that they're doing these first round buys. There is absolutely no reason that two of the first round buys are Boise State and Arizona State. I'm sorry, there is no other way to cut it. I get it. They won the Mountain west, they won the Big 12. These teams, whoever they play in that second round and again, I will eat crow if it doesn't happen. I have a feeling they're going to get smoked. But the bigger issue I have is that the way that this bracket ended up falling really seems like it was socially engineered for four teams to make it to the Final Four. And those four teams are going to wind up being Texas. It's going to wind up being Oregon, Penn State and Georgia. And so to me it's like, okay, we put in these teams, we seeded them like this, like, okay, we let the two in the two ACC teams in Clemson, who as Adam has pointed out already is ranked 16th, okay. And so they get the 12th spot because they're the automatic bid in. So they have the pleasure of going to Austin, Texas where they will probably get dog walked to a certain degree defensively because I just don't think Clemson will be able to score on Texas's defense. And it doesn't really matter how poorly Ewers slash Manning play because I just don't think Clemson will put up more than 10 points and I might be wrong on that. So then what happens at Texas? Then they get the pleasure of going to their neutral site to play Arizona State, a Big 12 team, relatively weak conference. I understand that they've played well. Camp Scatterbu has been really good for them. And a bit of a revelation at the end of the day. The competition in the Big 12 is just nowhere near the SEC and again yours and Manning can probably have an off day and they'll dog walk him again. So it's an easy path to the quarterfinals. I look at also we have the nightmare rotation is your Tennessee, Ohio State matchup. And whoever wins has to play Oregon. That is actually a gauntlet and that's actually quality football to watch I think by any fan stretch of the imagination. But then you get into, okay, smu, your ACC loser who has debated will this be Alabama or smu? They have to go to Happy Valley to play Penn State. And then as Nick, you've pointed out, you think that you probably think that Penn State will win. Although we've talked about our, our thoughts on James Franklin in the big game. So anything can happen. But if I had the bet money on the game, I would probably pick Penn State by a wide margin. And who does Penn State get to play? Boise State. Really? And I look at the other one. So we have Indiana and Notre Dame. Well, first of all, Indiana, which I've already mentioned, is in the same position as smu. Terrible strength of schedule, the actual quality games that they played in, they didn't show up. And despite Notre Dame's loss to Northern Illinois, which is very Alabama, Oklahoma esque in that regard, Notre Dame has quietly been a relatively good team. And so I think Notre Dame will handle their business against Illinois. And then Notre Dame, they got to go play Georgia now. So the better matchups were just kind of like, they're like, okay. And then you got like these two, they're like ridiculous the way that they're set up. They put in the four weakest teams, happen to be in the same two branches. And I don't know how on earth you let that occur. This is just terrible. And also I'm sorry, I respect Boise State for what they did. They, they're their group of five team. They won their championship game. They played well all season. Their only loss is to three points to Oregon early in the year. There's no reason why The Group of 5 team should get the first round by quite frankly, if they want to do the first round by and you're going to do this automatic bid thing. Just put in the four power four conference champions and then let the group of five team, if they have the better record, let them host a home playoff game. That'd probably be more electric than sending them off to a neutral site and then watching them get sent like a lamb to a slaughter to one of these top teams. But the way that this was set up, in the way that this fell down, it just felt like, well, we want these four teams in. You know, what is the best way that we can get them in? And that's really just how the chips fell, as they'll probably tell you. But the quality of these games is pretty poor, if I'm being honest. And quite frankly, if you're one of those five teams kind of on the bubble, you know, you have every right to be upset by this. I don't think that anyone would disagree that even Ole Miss or South Carolina or maybe even Miami for that matter would probably be a better competition matchup against like Texas against Notre Dame against Penn State. I mean, in my opinion, the only really solid round one matchup is Tennessee, Ohio State. [00:33:26] Speaker B: Okay, I do have two things. First off, do not let Elliot fool you. He is simply advocating for the blue field playoff game. That is his true agenda. Second off, extremely bold of you to assume that James Franklin, who is. Okay, hold on, let me pull up the record here. 1 and 13 against top fives, 3 and 18 against top tens, and 14 and 26 versus top 25 teams can win not one but two College Football Playoff games. So here, here's, here's what I put. [00:33:58] Speaker C: Well, here's what I'll put on that one. Okay, so I'll ask both of you this. Do you think that Clemson is a good team? Yes or no? [00:34:05] Speaker A: I'm good. [00:34:07] Speaker C: By a good team, I mean one that can beat top 10 talent, that will not struggle the minute that the going gets rough and also not blow like a 17 point lead in the second half to a team that you have your foot on their throat. [00:34:26] Speaker B: So yeah, so I'll get more into that one when we do the, when we do the prediction of the Texas versus Clemson. I do not think they're that great of a team. No. [00:34:35] Speaker C: Sure. Okay. So they're not that great of a team. Okay. Adam? [00:34:39] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I don't, I think they were a little high to begin with. But you know, I would say that they're still a top 25 team because, you know, I've seen everybody else play too, but they're pretty average. I think they are. Yeah. I mean, I've said it on, on this show already that I don't think they should be in the 12 team playoff because they're not a top 12 team. And I don't really think they're. I mean, obviously they might match up well with smu, but are they going to match up well with Texas? Are they going to match up well with any of the other top teams? I mean, if they happen to pull off the upset against Texas and then go play Arizona State, they might walk their way into a final four appearance. But you know, I don't think they're as good as what it might seem by them making the playoff. [00:35:28] Speaker C: Sure. So they're an average team. And we just watched an average team beat another overrated average team. I actually was high on SMU walking into this game and I watched that first half and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to eat crow on everything I just said. Defense looked horrible, the offense looked horrible, and quite frankly the entire second half I was like, okay, well I thought Clemson was just going to run up the score, but instead it was like, well, you know, maybe we'll just run out the clock. That's what we'll do. We'll just run it every play. We'll drain five minutes, we'll give you the ball back, give you a chance. We'll keep playing this little game. And Clemson had every opportunity to win this game by like 20 plus points and they didn't because they were more focused on running out the clock and getting the win instead of just winning convincingly. It took quite literally a miracle, like run back to the 40 and then a solid play. And then a freshman kicker who has struggled this year and again, all the credit goes to him smacking through a 56 yard field goal, you know, with no time left. And like I. So both of these teams are painfully average. Painfully. I might even say that based on strength of schedule, SMU might be a tad below. But there are multiple teams that fit this mold. Clemson I don't think is very great. SMU I also don't think is very great. Indiana has SMU syndrome. Boise State, they had that one really good game against Oregon. Outside of that, who have they really played? Okay, like, I don't want to get into that. I mean, they have struggled with like San Jose State and everything. I really would hate to see them like have a really high quality SEC or Big Ten opponent and get absolutely like ran through because that would just be bad for the Group of five brand if that occurred. But that doesn't seem like it's a good matchup either. And I have my concerns with Arizona State because I just don't think the Big 12 is, you know, top to bottom that great either. We talked about BYU struggles at the end of the year. Iowa State fell off a cliff at the end of the year. Colorado shot themselves in the foot. But the Big 12 is also a hot, steamy pile of average, just like the acc. There are multiple teams in this bracket that have zero business being in there. But this is the product that we have. So, yeah, I have a lot of issues with this bracket. I think a lot of it comes down to the decision making. We talked about the strength to schedule thing. We've talked about this automatic bid stuff. The whole thing sucks. It's just bad. And I'm going to put these teams on notice here. And again, I'll eat my words if this is true. But if you are the Big 12 team, the ACC team, the Group of Five team, or if you're Indiana, which is a team that avoided criticism because they didn't have to play in their championship game and had a good enough record, you better show up. You at least need to make these games close because if you don't, there's going to be a lot of people, you know, with the committee wondering, okay, what the heck are we doing here? This is a terrible product. So I don't like the 12 team playoff. I know Nick doesn't like the 12 team playoff. Quite frankly, I hope it crashes and burns. So they just go back to the normal one, the four team, you know, that they had in the past. But if you guys want that to stick around, you got to show up and you got to play the game. I mean, you cannot get dog walked in these games. [00:38:42] Speaker A: Yeah, for me, you know, a lot of the same stuff that Elliott said, a lot of the stuff I've said already. You know, I will say the best thing that I like about this playoff is those home playoff games and I do wish you had them for the first two rounds, but that doesn't get the most money. So they're not. They would. They weren't where they were never going to do that. Now back to the. So the conference champion automatic qualifier, if you want to keep it. Sure. But I, I'm trying to. Many people said it the last couple of days, but it was like once you have those qualifiers then seed the field. You should not have the team ranked nine being the third seed, you should not have the team ranked 12 being the fourth seed. And you shouldn't have a team ranked 16 even getting in the playoff. But in my case of keeping that, you know, they would keep the 12, Arizona State would just move up to the 11 and then Boise State would be at 9 and then they would have to go to Ohio State. I guess, I mean, it depends on how everything else worked out. Might have been going to Tennessee. I'm not going to redo the whole bracket right now, but you know, it's. I just don't like how they're going to. So Boise State is going to get a first round buy, right? They're going to have that game in Phoenix. They're going to get the winner of SMU and Penn State. If SMU somehow pulls off that upset, you know, maybe Boise State has a chance against smu, but you know, we've seen it many times in the past where, you know, you have a team. So two teams will wait a month before their bowl game. They both come out flat or one of them comes out flat and the other one blows them out. Now you're going to get a tune up, tune up game. And then, you know, Boise State would still wait a month and then have a team that just played. Same with Georgia, Oregon, Arizona State. It would be very interesting to see if all of those top teams just didn't show up when all the other teams got the tune up. But you know, you definitely need in my opinion to actually have the top four seeds be the top four teams and then figure out something here because there's no reason that the number one team should have possibly the hardest path to the championship because so if Oregon, let's just hope if the top team wins each time. So Ohio State beats Tennessee. So Oregon gets a rematch against Ohio State this time in the Rose bowl. Then they win that one. They would most likely play Texas. And so now you've played what could have been the second best team in your conference if they. And you might have already had had the rematch if they hadn't lost to Michigan. Then you're playing Texas, the number three team that is ranked who just lost the SEC championship. And then you finally get to the national championship before you somehow won that one after running that gauntlet. And then, you know, playing Georgia, maybe Penn State, you know, maybe one of those other teams get up there. But you could have had Oregon at the 1, Georgia at the 2, Texas at the 3. You might have, you might have flipped Notre Dame and Penn State I don't know. They were saying they didn't want to move them because, you know, Notre Dame also didn't play, so they were going to keep Penn State ahead of them. But, you know, I wish it was different seating. I mean, me personally, I wish we didn't. Have I mentioned to you we should just go back to the BCS system, just get the top two teams and put them in. But people are already like, right now it's Alabama future years. It's going to be other people complaining that they were left out. I know Miami still thinks they should be in, but at least the ACC got two teams in. You know, are we going to stick at 12? Is it eventually going to be 16 teams? And then I want to. I wish I could be in on those negotiations when all the conferences have to sign off on what the next format is going to be because, like, I would not be surprised because we already heard it before how the SEC and the Big Ten, we're going to be asking for like more automatic qualifying spots. Is it eventually just going to be. We're not going to have the rankings. It's just going to be like if you finish top three in the sec, top three in the Big Ten, top three in the acc, like you just get in and, you know, I don't know, it'll be interesting. [00:43:15] Speaker B: Yeah. So. Ah, man, so many thoughts. First off, let me just say that, like the 12 team playoff, like, I don't know how they decided to. How they came up with this whole system with like, we're not going to re. We're not going to reseed the bracket after the first round. You know, let's have five buys. Like there were, I feel like there were a lot of people when this bracket and this whole system was first unveiled. That said, like, guys, this low key sucks. Like, you guys understand like the problems with this, right? And it was just like, nope, let's just put the earplugs in. Let's. It's all fine, you know, everything's cool. And it took us getting to this point where we have like one of the most unfair playoff brackets I've ever seen in my life. Like, this is what it's going to take to install some change. First off, you can argue that Oregon should have laid down in the fourth quarter against Penn State and allowed them to win the football game. Their seating would be so much better. Hey, Oregon, you went undefeated. You won the Big Ten in your first year in the conference. You've looked absolutely fantastic all year. What are we going to reward you with. Get ready. You get to play either Ohio State or Tennessee, then you're probably going to have to play taxes all that to make it to the national championship. Like if, okay, first off, if Oregon goes all the way and wins it, this is an incredible team. Like fantastic job because you will be either Tennessee, Ohio State, Texas and then Georgia. Like or you know, some mix. Right. But like that's. [00:44:57] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I was just going to say about Oregon, actually if I'm Oregon, I'm just going to say I agree with you laying down because quite frankly I'm a little concerned with the way that the defense was kind of non existent in that game against Penn State. This is a Penn State team that's really struggled to score and they give up 37 points. I honestly think you'd want that tune up game. I don't think sitting there for multiple weeks and then waiting for another team to show up and it's going to wind up being either, you know, rematch with Ohio State or you're going to have to play at Tennessee. I think you would have wanted to have another game to be like, okay, let's write the ship in that regard. [00:45:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And then like so obviously you know, there is a problem with your playoff when people can make a logical argument advocating for you to intentionally lose a football game to be seated lower in the bracket because you will have a better advantage regardless. So then you've got like, okay, let's say like, like Penn State's path. They could play SMU and Boise State and all of a sudden they're in the semis. Like what are we doing here? So that's, that's garbage. Don't get me wrong with that. You had several teams, they got like very robbed. Like Tennessee, easily a team that should have a home game. Like there are several, several of these teams that you know, Arizona State, Boise State, Indiana, like there, there are a lot of these teams that just are not, not quality. There's a lot of, there's a lot of issues here. So really what I think it comes down to is you need to do one of two things. Okay. Now I don't really know that I love the whole like the SEC and the Big Ten should get X number of like guaranteed spots. Like. Yes. Would that be good for Alabama? Yes. But would it be good for the game? No, it would not. You're going to create a lot more problems there. So one of two things needs to happen. Either I am completely fine with you getting a bid, an auto bid, not a buy if you win your conference title, you're in for sure. Like, you punch your ticket. Okay, I like that. But you either have to, like, get rid of the first round buys or keep the first round buys and, like, seed the bracket how you actually should have seeded it. Give your four best teams the buy. Don't care about the conference title games or after the first round. You need to reseed the whole thing and you need to make sure that Oregon is playing the worst team that made it to the second round. Adam, it felt like you were going to say something. [00:47:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, before, you know, I was just going to say, you know, if you had it to where it was like the top four got those four buys, you know, Tennessee would still be at the seven. They would get to host that game. You would, you know, I think you would see better matchups. You would also have, you know, deserve, like all the teams that are hosting do deserve to host. But it's just you could have gotten a little bit. A little bit better right there. Right. And then something that I mentioned to y'all that I did want to get in here before we actually get into the predictions. So, you know, in the 14 playoff, you made the playoff, whoever the number one team was, they got to pick which bowl game they wanted to go to. It's still the same once you get to the semifinals, that whoever's the top seeded team still left gets preferential treatment. They get to pick which one of the games that they go to, but they don't get to do that for the quarterfinals. And so this year, it did work out pretty well for them. Right? But Oregon, so they get the Rose Bowl. It's on the West Coast. That's what the Big Ten and the Pac 12, they used to be a part of. That's where they used. That was those champions always face each other. Georgia goes to the Sugar bowl because that's where the SEC champion has always been. Now, there was a game in Atlanta, I'm sure Georgia would rather just stayed in Atlanta, been able to have that home field advantage there. But New Orleans isn't too bad. Boise State, they get the Fiesta bowl, so they stay, you know, on that western side so they don't have to travel as far. Arizona State has to go all the way to Atlanta. You knew one team was going to get messed up, but you could have. Let's. I'm not saying this would happen, but like next year, if smu, let's just say smu, you know, won the acc and this year they were good. They were the number one team. There's a game in Dallas, but they wouldn't go there. They'd get sent to Miami. So. Because that's where the acc, if I'm not mistaken, the ACC champion has always went to the Orange Bowl. So they would. There would be a playoff game in Dallas and they'd have to go to Miami. So I do wish that's why it would just be so much better if that second round had home games and you didn't have to worry about it. But anyway. [00:49:44] Speaker C: Well, also you're speaking to a deeper issue of allowing teams on the. Either the southwest or the west coast to be in the Atlantic Coast Conference. So the All Coast Conference. [00:49:54] Speaker A: This is one of those. [00:49:56] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I mean. Well, okay, let's consider if this was Cal. Okay, let's say the calgorithm got in and they didn't lose like seven one score games or whatever in their conference. I don't forget how many it was. Imagine hosting a game at home in California and then as your reward you get to go play on a neutral side in Miami. Like how ridiculous is that? [00:50:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just garbage. So one, one final thing that I will bring up a concept if you will. I have concepts of a plan before, you know, we get into the predictions. Okay, so hear me out. If there was anything good that the IM League's flag football system for the playoffs did, well, it was allowing you to pick your opponent. Here's my. [00:50:41] Speaker C: Actually, no, no, that's garbage because they let us schedule two different games. [00:50:45] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, don't, don't get me started on that. That's a, that's a whole outside issue. But in theory. Right. Okay. After the first round we go one by one through your top four seeds and they get to pick their opponent. Okay. So you let Oregon have their pick of all the teams that won from the first round. I think that would make it just. And okay, also just for the record, you have to do this like they did the NBA all star team selections when they started making the player captains. You have to have all the coaches on TV at the same time or even better yet, get them all in the same room and have them like pick each other and like call them out, have them cut promos on each other. This, this could be 10 out of this. This could be true cinema. College Football Playoff Committee espn. [00:51:33] Speaker C: Espn. Nick Persley is calling. He wants you to the decision. [00:51:37] Speaker B: But it's like Oregon choosing to play. I don't even know. Indiana, I don't know. Who knows? Okay. So prediction time. Okay. We're going to do the first round only we won't go any further. We'll save that for the future. We will start with number five seed, Texas versus number 12, Clemson. Elliot. [00:52:01] Speaker C: Yeah. I already said it earlier. Kind of a bit of a spoiler. And you know what? Like all my exes, they might go to Texas, but I'm going to have to roll with the horns on this one. Hope I'm making you proud, mother. I'm going to have to hook them for this one. [00:52:18] Speaker B: Adam. [00:52:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So this is an interesting game for the wrong reasons, Right. Texas, no wins over current top 25 teams. Clemson, no wins over SEC teams. So, you know, one of them's got a gift. I'm going to go with Texas. Just being at home. And I don't think Clemson should be in the playoff anyway. Obviously, like we said, got in because they won their conference. Good for them. I'm going to go with Texas. [00:52:45] Speaker B: Okay, so similar thoughts. I'm going to go with Texas. Spoiler. Because I don't believe in Clemson even more than I don't believe believe in Texas. But let me just say for the record, there's no way in hell that I would put money on this game. Zero percent chance. Because I don't think Texas is really that good. And you kind of have the same problem. You really haven't seen them play that well. So let's talk about Texas. They got to play Georgia at home. And it was a blowout. It was not a close game, straight up. And Carson Beck played terrible in that game. Then they got a rematch with Georgia on a neutral field in Atlanta. Right. Not a neutral field. Let's just get that one out of the way. And not only did they get to rematch Georgia, they got to play Georgia, who didn't have Carson back for the entire second half because he's like a shoulder. Like his arm got messed up. [00:53:43] Speaker A: No, but that's how you win. That's how you win in that stadium. You have to play your backup quarterback, you know? [00:53:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And then, like, they just completely blow it. They go to overtime. They play terrible. Quinn, yours played terrible. I do not believe in Texas, like, even in. Even in the slightest. Like, I am very concerned about Texas chances. Like, in the long run. I don't think that they have the potential to win the national title. Certainly not with Quinn Ewers playing. They are extremely flawed. We have not seen them play extremely well against a team that we would say, like, oh, yeah, like, it's kind of the thing that I was talking about with smu, right. Like, we saw them have their chances. They got two cracks at Georgia and they couldn't win either one, even with the most favorable circumstances you could ask for. So I do not believe in Texas. I think Clemson very well could win this game. But I will go with Texas because, I mean, surely Dabo does not beat. It would be hilarious. [00:54:40] Speaker C: But I just want to add on to your comment because I also don't believe in Texas. And again, I'm just taking them because I just think Clemson as an average to below average team is really what it comes down to. But, like, you're right, yours hasn't played well. He hasn't been himself. I'm still convinced that he is hurt to some degree and he is playing through some sort of injury because he was really solid at points. And then after he would come back from his injury and then he'd kind of take a step back and then they'd sub him out on packages to let him rest up a little more. He just hasn't been the same since all of his injuries. Whether it's. What was it, ribs, a shoulder. He's kind of made of glass at this point. But, you know, the bigger thing, like with Texas, I guess the bigger concern. I said that the Texas defense would shut down Clemson. I absolutely think that Texas defense will shut down an ACC team. Texas defense, in my opinion, was the bigger loser in that game because they actually, they stomped Carson Beck. They did not allow them to score any points. They scored, what, three at the half? They let all those points go to a backup quarterback who threw like under 50% completion and maybe the most egregious pick I have ever seen in my life. I don't know where he was throwing that. Okay. I don't know if he was trying to throw that out of bounds, but he threw that. He threw that sucker directly to that defender. [00:56:04] Speaker A: Yeah. The other guy turns around and throws a block. He probably returns it for a touchdown. They win the game. But. [00:56:09] Speaker B: But, yeah, truly, truly tragic. [00:56:11] Speaker A: Okay, so we're done with the one game that might not have snow in it. [00:56:18] Speaker B: That's true. Okay, so Next we've got SMU headed to Penn State, the 6 seed versus the 11 seed. Elliot, we'll start with you again. [00:56:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, Adam, you go first. [00:56:42] Speaker A: If you're not ready to go, I can take it. [00:56:44] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I said. I said, adam, you go first. I'm not ready. [00:56:50] Speaker A: For me, it's pretty easy. You know, we saw smu, they got on the Big stage. And they struggled mightily in the. In that first half. And, you know, Clemson had less to travel, probably had more fans there. Looked like the stadium was about half full. Now you're on a bigger stage, right? You lost that game. Maybe you should have won it. You lost on the 56 yard field goal. You probably win if it goes into overtime, I think. But here you are. Now you got to go on the road and you're going to Penn State. Penn State. Whether we think Penn State is a good team or not. You know, you've mentioned how they do well, how they do against, you know, top 10, top 20, all, all these opponents, they don't do well on the big stage. This is great for Penn State, right. They get SMU in and this is going to be the toughest environment SMU's played in all year. The. The old. I guess the closest they would have been to is Duke, where they went and won 28, 27 in overtime. I don't think SMU is going to be able to handle Penn State's atmosphere that well, especially since they have announced that this will be their wideout game. You know, they're finally getting their real night out, wideout game, and it's going to be a playoff game. And I think Penn State's going to handle SMU fairly easily. [00:58:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. [00:58:07] Speaker C: You want to go first? [00:58:09] Speaker B: No, no, go ahead. [00:58:11] Speaker C: Okay. The reason I needed to take a moment is I was trying to figure out what the weather forecast was up at Happy Valley. It doesn't say that it's supposed to snow. It's just supposed to be cold. That being said, I'm still taking the Nittany Lions on this one. I just don't think that SMU is going to be able to score points if they struggle to score points on a pretty below average Clemson defense. Penn State, as much crap as I do give them, that's more on the offensive side of the ball. It's not really on the defensive side. I think that if it comes down to the defense, Penn State will prevail. If it becomes a shootout like we ended up seeing surprisingly in the Big Ten championship. Give me SMU in that regard, but I'm going to go with Penn State. [00:58:58] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm going to go with Penn State. Against my better judgment, I'm going to pick James Franklin. To actually win a meaningful football game seems dangerous once again, would never in my life place any amount of money on this football game because you just have no idea how it's going to fare. This is the same Penn State team that was up 10 nothing against Ohio State who managed to lose to Michigan and proceeded to score three points for the rest of the game and lose that one. I don't have confidence in Penn State, but I do think that this is a favorable matchup for them. It is going to be very difficult for a team from Dallas to go on the road and play in such a cold environment. I'm sure that that place will be rocking. They are going to need it. But I will take Penn State over smu. And just for the record, the Nittany lion himself is an absolute disgrace to mascots around the world. [00:59:58] Speaker A: How dare you. [01:00:00] Speaker B: Okay, Puddles for the win. Okay, so now we will go to Notre Dame, Indiana. We've got the Indiana State championship on the line. Mr. Miller. [01:00:19] Speaker C: Oh, brother. I kind of already spoiled this one a little bit earlier too. Indiana in the one game that they had that was supposed to be their marquee difficult matchup. Bad, rough. The only thing here though is that these two teams are from the same state. So there shouldn't be any weather factors that I should have to consider in this one. That being said, Notre Dame has been pretty solid most of the year barring Northern Illinois. So give me the Irish out of South Bend. [01:00:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I'm just. I want to know who's actually going to get to go to that game. If you've seen the ticket prices on the second hand. Yeah, ticket sales, you know, stuff. Hubseki. Cheapest tickets, like a thousand dollars to get in. Who's. Who's going to the game that has like who's actually going. That has the ticket or who's just trying to sell it. So who's actually going to show up to watch this game? This was interesting. You know, Notre Dame, you know, they've played pretty well, right. But once again, like so they beat that. So they lost Northern Illinois, they beat Texas A and M. You know, we one and they lose to Northern Illinois. And obviously that was week two. You know, they, they've improved since then, but a lot of their, you know, best matchups don't really give me like. I know we talked about how Indiana, you know, really hadn't played much Notre Dame. Let's see if I can actually get their schedule up here. But you know, before, I mean, so they had no. So they had. Texas ain't in that week one the USC's last week then, you know, if USC doesn't throw two pick sixes, you know, Notre Dame might lose that one. But yeah, it's like Miami, Ohio, Stanford, Navy, Virginia, Army, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville. Like, it's not the toughest schedule and they do get it at home, but for some reason I'm actually just going to go with Indiana for no other reason that, you know, I really don't like Notre Dame and I don't think that they've really beat anybody either. And I think Cignetti is going to go in there and pull off the upset. [01:02:42] Speaker B: So if there was a spot in this bracket for an upset to happen, this would be it right here. You saw Notre Dame lose a game at home to Northern Illinois. Go Huskies. It just, if there was a spot, you know, it would be this Notre Dame traditionally not successful in playoff games either. Very Penn State. Ish. But I do think that this Notre Dame, Notre Dame team is actually pretty solid. You know, they had a bad loss, but other than that I think we've seen a lot of good things. But here's the fact, either one of these teams will get absolutely thrashed by Georgia even if Carson Beck is not able to play. So I mean, congratulations, you win. Have fun playing Georgia. You're going to get eaten alive by the Bulldogs. So I'll pick Notre Dame. I want to pick Indiana, but I just can't. I mean one, one meaningful game all year and you got absolutely thrash. [01:03:47] Speaker A: It's okay. I'll take it for all of us. [01:03:50] Speaker C: Okay, someone's got. [01:03:51] Speaker B: So now we finally go to probably the easily the best matchup out of any of these. In the first round, Tennessee heads to Ohio State, the eighth seed versus the nine seed. [01:04:04] Speaker C: Elliot, I'm going to actually disagree with a comment you made earlier in which you said that the place for an upset would be to happen with Indiana. Notre Dame. Give me the Volunteers. I think that Ohio State has been pretty shaky, you know, especially coming off that last loss to Michigan. And I agree, I think someone said it on the yes. On the ESPN like reveal show. You know, if Ohio State does not come out like guns blazing, the fans are going to start booing them like at their home site. And they almost would have rather had that be an away game to where they would avoid having their own fans booing them. So in that case, I think if, if Ohio State gets off to a really slow start, this spells disaster for him. So yeah, just give me the high powered Tennessee offense. [01:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah, so, you know, a bunch of people have, have talked about before, you know, about the weather, having SEC teams going up playing against the Big Ten team and I think, you know, maybe if it was Georgia. Maybe if it was Ole Miss, maybe if it was Alabama going here, Tennessee's, you know, in Knoxville, Tennessee, you know, it's up in the mountains. You know, it gets pretty cold up there. Columbus, Ohio, not too far away from it. And I've told you all this. I don't remember if we said it when the recording was live, but you know, I went to the color Conference USA championship game last week, right? And swatching Jacksonville State, Western Kentucky, they had played the week before and Western Kentucky had won on a last second field goal, 1917. So I go to this game hosted at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama. At kickoff, it was 35. It dropped down to, I think 30 or 29. Wind chill was lower than that. At the same time that that game was going on, there was a game in Boise, Idaho where it was 30 degrees, but it felt warmer. So just so we're clear, it was colder in Jacksonville, Alabama than it was in Boise, Idaho. And Jacksonville State is playing a team from Kentucky, you know, pretty close to Columbus, Ohio. And in that weather, Jacksonville State won 52 to 12. I don't want to hear that the cold weather is going to keep an SEC team for winning a game, especially when it's a team that is literally in the mountains. And I, like Elliot was saying, if those fans turn against Ohio State, if they make a couple mistakes early, I don't really have a lot of confidence if that starts happening. So I am also going to take Tennessee to win this game. [01:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So first off, shame on you, Elliot, for saying if there was, for saying it. And it's an upset alert to beat a team one seed higher than you, literally, you could swap this around. [01:07:01] Speaker C: Like, hey, man, I'm a math guy, okay? I look at the numbers, how they see fit. The last time I checked, Ohio State's number next to their name is one higher than the one next to Tennessee. In my. My book, that is an upset. [01:07:14] Speaker B: You know, if it was the College Football Playoff committee just straight up saying, guys, eight is a lower number than nine, like all of Twitter would still find a way to have an argument over that fact. So, look, man, this is truly going to be a battle of who can not lose the game first. Okay? You have on both sides of this. You feel super uncomfortable. First off, like you said, Elliot, Ohio State did not want to play at home. If there was a single team that did not want to play a home playoff game, it was Ohio State because very well, if they go down early in this game, they're going to have to come out strong. They're going to have to have a good start or very well. They could get booed out of their own building, which has its own problems. This is truly a Ryan Day playing for his job game. This is going to be a whole Ryan Day playing for his job playoff run potentially here that they're going to try and put together. Will Howard has looked extremely shaky in that Michigan game. Man. [01:08:17] Speaker C: Some of shaky is an understatement. [01:08:19] Speaker B: Some of those that were being made, throwing late to the outside, standing in your own end zone. I mean, literally everything that could have gone wrong had to go wrong. For them to get beaten by Michigan, it happened. Will Howard's confidence has to be in the toilet. On the other side, you have a young quarterback in Nico Maliava who is going on the road to a very difficult environment, arguably one of the hardest places to play in all of college football, assuming that they don't boo their own team. So I don't. There's two things that I think are going to be big in this game. I think A, it's going to be who can make the least mistakes, who can, you know, do the least stupid things and not lose the game very easily. And second, I think it's really going to come down to the running backs for both team. Quinton Judkins arguably made one of the worst decisions he's ever made to go to Ohio State over Ole Miss hasn't really worked out well for him. Here's your chance. You can make it all worth it. You can beat Tennessee and you can go off and have your best game of the season. On the other side, you've got rockets. No, that's not true. That is from. He plays for South Carolina. That is tough. Very tough. [01:09:30] Speaker A: Oh, we know who Nick would have put in the playoff. [01:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah, very true. Yeah, I actually did want South Carolina in the playoff just for. [01:09:36] Speaker C: Nick is a fan of Beamer ball, as am I. [01:09:39] Speaker A: For real. [01:09:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:09:40] Speaker B: Big beaver ball guy right here. It's going to come down to the Russian game on both sides. You are going to have to see this. I expect this will be a good game, but for all the wrong reasons. It is truly just going to be a. Like, you can't turn away, you know, you can't look away from a car crash, that sort of thing. This is exactly what we're going to see here. So any final thoughts from anybody other than me completely whiffing on the. [01:10:09] Speaker C: No, I just think all these games stink. [01:10:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:13] Speaker A: I mean, for me, you know, specifically about the Ohio State Tennessee game. Because all I really had said in there was I don't think the weather is going to be much of a challenge and I think Tennessee comes out with a win. Here's one thing to remember the last game that was in that stadium, Ohio State allowed Michigan's running back to go 116 yards and 32 carries. I think Dylan Sampson is going to be able to run on him just like Michigan was able to. And that's how Tennessee is going to be able to control clock and win this game. Keep it out of the hands of their quarterback who might not have. I mean he's been in big games. But like you were saying, going up to the, to the shoe for the first playoff game game there in history, you know, would be tough. So just give it to Samson and you'll be all right. [01:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I like, yeah, I totally whiffed. I meant, I meant Dylan Sampson, of course. You know, you would think I could remember that because I was at that game where, you know, he played quite well against Alabama. But yeah, so I think that's going to do it. For our predictions, we will predict the future rounds in another episode of the Low Tide. When we come back, it's beef of the week as always. We'll be right back here on 90.7 capstone. [01:11:37] Speaker A: WVUAFM Tuscaloosa. [01:11:55] Speaker B: Welcome back into the low tide here on 90.7 capstone dot final couple of minutes or so. Nicholas Adam Elliott first. In a little bit of an unexpected shift, we are going to live react to the the Heisman finalists that just got announced. Apparently I have not seen them as of yet. So now I'm going to scroll up and read them off for you. Here are your Heisman finalists. Dylan Gabriel from Oregon, Travis Hunter, Ashton Gianti and Cam Ward. Yikes. Okay, immediate thoughts, Elliot. [01:12:34] Speaker C: Well, so here's the thing. It's a two man race. It's got to be between Travis Hunter and Aston Jente. If you say anything else, you're objectively wrong and I'm not going to listen to your opinion. And that's just how it's going to be. I don't think there's anyone in this earth who actually thinks one of these quarterbacks deserve the award. And that's nothing against them as a player. It's just that the other two have been more outstanding in that regard. This is not a quarterback award. This can go to anyone. Okay, so it's about time that we give it to some non, you know, quarterback players. I have a feeling that Gabriel is only on Here because he's on the only undefeated team. That's what this kind of feels like to me. I'm not sure if I'm necessarily rocking with that one completely. I can see it though. I mean, it's tough for the one that I am disgusted by is the Cam Ward one. I'm sorry, I know he's been the Heisman darling like all season. This team is not even in the top 12, man. Like, I, I don't know. I just don't know what to tell you. The only reason I'm entertaining Travis Hunter as A non top 12 team is the fact that the brother plays both on defense and on offense. He literally plays almost every snap and he has the defensive production and the offensive production of a full time offensive or defensive starter. So argue with the wall, go outside. I don't know. Talk about the weather. [01:13:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So for me, you know, I don't really have a problem with the finalists. I mean, who else would we put on? I mean, you could, I guess you could just have two people go, if that's what you wanted to do. [01:14:03] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:14:04] Speaker A: I don't really have a problem with Ward being, you know, sent there. I mean, how bad would Miami be if they didn't have Cam Ward this year? That's. We could talk about that some other time. But my thing with this, if we're talking about. Because I don't. We all think that Gabriel is. He's not. We all think that it's between Travis Hunter and Ashton Jinty. And for me, like Travis Hunter does put in, he puts in the work, right? He puts in offense and defense. But there have been some games and you know, he's, he's still putting in that work on defense. But there have been some games on the offense end where he's just not there. And you know, maybe that's because the defense is really focused on trying to shut him down. But then Colorado has had other people to go to. But like, let's see, there's the game in Arizona. They won 34 to 70 at two catches for 17 yards. Here's the game against Kansas State that they lost three catches for 26. And obviously they're trying to shut him down. And you know, there's other people that Colorado can go to. But then we look at Gentee. Boise State doesn't really have much of anything other than Gentee. Like if he is not on, they're going to struggle in that game. And you know, they all, they lost the one game against Oregon where he had 25 touches for 192 yards. The least amount of touches in the game this year. He had 11 in a game against Portland State. He didn't really need it that much. 11 carries, 127 yards. They won 56, 14. And then, you know, he has, he did not have a single game where he had less than 100 rushing yards. And he had 344 carries this year. Only two fumbles. I think that's pretty impressive. I would go with Gentee over Hunter for me personally. [01:15:57] Speaker C: Oh yeah, absolutely. I'll double that and give it to Nick, the next person here. My pick is Gentee and it's quite frankly not very close. [01:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. I'm going with the same thing. It is not close. If Travis Hunter somehow manages to win the Heisman, this will be the greatest robbery I have ever seen in my life. [01:16:14] Speaker C: I think he actually has the best betting odds. I just looked it up. [01:16:16] Speaker B: That's absolutely horrendous. Ashton Gianti literally carried a team that won the Mountain west to. They had one loss in a very close game to the number one team and the undefeated Oregon Ducks. And they are literally the 3 seed in the first ever 12 team college football Playoff. Please, please, please, please, please do not pick Travis Hunter just because he plays both sides. [01:16:42] Speaker A: 2,497 rushing yards, 29 touchdowns, and then 116 receiving yards in a touchdown. [01:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I really, I just, I just don't see the argument, honestly, I think that Cam Ward would have had a strong argument had Miami like run the gauntlet and won the acc because literally like you said, Elliot, if Cam, you know, or Adam, I think it was Adam that said it. If Cam Ward was not on Miami, they might not have won more than a few games this year. He was literally the only reason that they won several games, you know, despite the fact that several of them were decided by the refs at the end. That's for another day. So, yeah, I don't really have a problem with who they picked. I feel like everything else pretty obvious. [01:17:34] Speaker C: So. [01:17:34] Speaker B: Yeah, so now we hop into beef of the week as always. [01:17:39] Speaker A: I'll start. [01:17:40] Speaker B: I, I think I had two coming in, but you know, I think only the better one ends up making the cut here. So there was a video going around on social media of basically the College Football Playoff committee watching the games. I believe they were watching, you know, they watched all the games, so it doesn't really matter. This setup is absolutely atrocious. First off, no wings in sight. This is an issue. You should not Be allowed to be on the College Football Playoff committee if you do not know how to properly enjoy football. Okay, no beverages, no wings, the most, like, uncomfortable looking chairs you've ever seen. Nobody getting pumped up. There was zero energy in this room. There are a thousand problems. So here is my new suggestion. Uh, instead, we should just have an election for the College Football Playoff committee, and it should only be allowed to be, like, random fans from across the country. So then you have to, like, lobby to get your fan in. Could you imagine the electric of, like, the random Alabama fan in the College Football Playoff committee half baked? But we got to fix. We got to fix the energy in this room. We got to fix the setup. It's absolutely horrendous. Need some wings desperately in there. Who wants to go next? [01:19:07] Speaker A: I mean, I guess I'll go just because I don't really think I have, you know, much of anything for this week. I mean, we've, we've talked about my beefs the entire show. You know, hey, you can just recap our whole show. I mean, I mean, look, you know, the conference champs, you know, getting the auto bid buys and everything at team that's not in the top 12 getting in. You know, it's, it's, it's been, it's been a rough week, guys. I guess the. The only other thing that I really have a beef with is, I mean, I. Okay. Out of the two options, it looked like Alabama was going to go to either the Citrus bowl or the Relia Quest Bowl. I wish it was still called the Outback, and that would just make it better. But, you know, I feel like. [01:19:59] Speaker B: You. [01:19:59] Speaker A: Know, I don't know. I just. I'm gonna go. I wish they would lower some of those hotel room prices down there, but hopefully I don't have to deal with this again. Alabama can just start making the playoffs and not lose three games in each season. [01:20:15] Speaker C: Solid. [01:20:17] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. Before you go, Mr. Miller, I remembered my other one, okay. The college. The Reddit college football Twitter account is absolute garbage. Whoever is the admin on that account needs to be fired immediately. They are very clearly an Auburn alum because the amount of hate that they have projected on Alabama, like, you know, and I understand, like, everybody wants to dunk on Alabama like they're the Cowboys. Okay, whatever. [01:20:48] Speaker A: So it's like Danny Canal. [01:20:50] Speaker B: It might be Danny Cannell. It actually might be. This is just truly. Do not waste your time reading anything that comes from this account. Some of the stuff that I have seen, like, if you're supposed to be over all of college football. I mean, come on. The bias is just incredible. Stick with the only worthwhile Twitter account following Sickos committee. They're the only good Twitter account, Mr. Miller. [01:21:19] Speaker C: Yeah, so mine. I'm going to complain about baseball real quick. If you live under a rock, you probably did not know that the Mets signed Juan Soto to a 15 year, 700, 700,000,000 million dollar contract. Now this also comes off the heels of the Dodgers, you know, having adding Blake Snell with all this deferred money, okay? The idea of deferred money is the worst possible thing for the sport, okay? Because it allows you to just stack your team with a bunch of players. So, like take the Dodgers, for instance. Super team, by the way, you sign Shohei, you sign all these people, but you don't actually pay them until the year like 2035, okay? And so, I mean, at that point, if I'm the owner, I can just sell the team, pass it off to new ownership, and that new ownership can now take care of the bill. So, like, what's up with that? Like, this is terrible. It's bad for the brand, it's bad for the sport. And my sad Pittsburgh Pirates will never have enough money to pay for someone like that. And I'm reading right now on Twitter that apparently the projected new Pirates first baseman talks are intensifying. Will be. Drumroll, please. Anthony Rizzo. Yay. He's totally not, like, almost 40. And he's totally not hurt and washed to a certain degree. But hey, Anthony, if you're listening to this, if you're on my team, I will root for you, okay? So that's all right. No matter what my feelings might be towards you because you were a Cub, I'll be nothing but positive. [01:23:02] Speaker B: Good thing you cleared that up. Also, two things. A, we lost Adam. I have no idea where. He just disappeared into the. Okay. Second, I absolutely hate baseball, so I do not care in the slightest. But $725 million is absolutely absurd. So I managed to look up some of the interesting things that you can buy. Some of the most expensive things that you can buy. You can buy a dead shark for $8 million. He has been preserved in formaldehyde. This actually sounds extremely cool. You could purchase, let's see, a giant clock for $42 million. It's the one that Jeff Bezos, like, apparently is going to run for 10,000 years or some crazy stuff. I just don't understand how you even spend $725 million. Um, can we just, like, we need to be, like, we need to have a serious discussion of how much money athletes make because it's, it is extremely uncomfortable to read that somebody signed a 15 year, $725 million deal to play a sport. [01:24:15] Speaker C: Which, yeah, sign me. I will play for like, I will play for like a 15 year, like just normal salary of a, of a working class person in the U.S. i'll just go with like 100K. Okay. You know, I'll. Maybe I'll. Maybe I'll be a little greedy. Go to 115, you know, as my entry contract as a rookie, you know, young buck right out of college. Like, you don't gotta be paying them all that, man. [01:24:43] Speaker B: And I promise, veteran minimum. [01:24:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I probably, yeah, sign into the vet. Men, man. I promise I'm probably, I'm probably funnier. Okay. I got more experience here on the Low tide. Right. [01:24:57] Speaker B: You know, it's a big resume piece. It's. [01:25:00] Speaker C: It is a big resume. You know, University of Alabama esports president. [01:25:04] Speaker B: Okay. [01:25:05] Speaker C: I'm just going down the list here, you know. [01:25:09] Speaker B: Before you run down your entire resume here on our, on our podcast, we've gone for almost an hour and 30 minutes. The exact thing I said we would not do when we started, but, you know, that's the danger. [01:25:21] Speaker C: When's the next Low Tide after dark? [01:25:26] Speaker B: Indefinitely canceled. The Low tide after dark has been replaced with any emergency pod that we want to do. I have no idea. Was there ever a Low Tide after Dark? People are saying it never existed. It's one of the. It's like on the. The Low Tide iceberg. It's on the Low Tide iceberg. It's like the very bottom level. Yeah, we're just vamping here saying that. [01:25:51] Speaker C: Low tide after dark has been canceled. [01:25:54] Speaker B: People are saying it never even got off the ground. It was never approved. That's what they're saying. All right, that's gonna do it. [01:26:00] Speaker C: Airlines flight. [01:26:02] Speaker B: Oh, man. Come on. That's gonna do it for us here on the Low Tide before we, you know, just go off on anything else, before Elliot starts talking about the weather. What's wrong with the weather, man? [01:26:15] Speaker C: Hey, it's a nice balmy. [01:26:18] Speaker B: Well, we will see you next week. Hopefully very same thing. I'm sure we'll predict the rest of the college football playoff and we'll probably predict Alabama, Michigan, rematch. Who knows if Alabama is going to field enough players that actually want to play in the game, but we're going to find out. So we will see you next week here on 90.7 the Capstone SA.