2025 College Football Playoffs

[NorthDakota]

I'm having trouble picturing MFMF up there with a smile on his face warming up a pop tart to eat it in front of the cameras. What I can picture is him rolling his eyes out of his skull.

Yeah I think the pop tart bowl is very fun as far as bowls go...but it is very much mid program coded. Super fun for BYU, GaTech, Vandy, etc.

Can you imagine Saban*, Smart, Day, etc. having any fun with it? No.

*maybe if Little Debby had a bowl game

 

[NorthDakota]

This is exactly why people are pissed ND skipped out. They don't give a single fuck about the Pop Tarts Bowl, they simply wanted the optics of this so they could laugh at ND. Deprived of that, they lash out.

I don't think I've seen a single tweet or post from a Miami fan discussing their game with A&M, everything is still about ND.

Miami as a fanbase doesn't really exist do they? My perception of them has been its a bunch of Gen X types who get excited for maybe a game or two once every few years if they have a good team and they are hosting a big brand from their glory years.

They don't strike me as the types to get excited for a road game at a school with limited historical success like TAMU. I also don't think they anticipate competing for a title.

 

[Bane]

Miami as a fanbase doesn't really exist do they? My perception of them has been its a bunch of Gen X types who get excited for maybe a game or two once every few years if they have a good team and they are hosting a big brand from their glory years.

They don't strike me as the types to get excited for a road game at a school with limited historical success like TAMU. I also don't think they anticipate competing for a title.

Miami fans exist when the team is doing well, they are the definition of frontrunners as was noted earlier.

I felt the whole time the huge debate was going on that Miami fans didn't actually want to make the playoffs, they just didn't want ND to make it. Their lack of discussion or care for the game validates that to me. Once ND didn't get in they won their Super Bowl and they're back to not caring about football. It's very strange because we're not even fulltime or primary rivals to them, but they seem to hate us more than FSU.

 

[IrishSteelhead]

Wrong thread. Whoopsie.


Anyhoo, I truly believe Miami-A&M will be the best game of the entire playoffs

 

[T-Boone]

Wrong thread. Whoopsie.


Anyhoo, I truly believe Miami-A&M will be the best game of the entire playoffs

I'd say Alabama v Oklahoma will be....

 

[Hautian Domer]

Yeah I think the pop tart bowl is very fun as far as bowls go...but it is very much mid program coded. Super fun for BYU, GaTech, Vandy, etc.

Can you imagine Saban*, Smart, Day, etc. having any fun with it? No.

*maybe if Little Debby had a bowl game

You have to get gimmicky as a bowl to garner any interest now.

You know who should be up there? JMU, Tulane, or AlafuckingBama

 

[rtrn2glory]

Totally forgot I booked a hotel room for Friday and Saturday night in South Bend a few months ago in case we were the Friday night game. Reluctantly and sadly had to cancel it when I got the notification on my phone

 

[NorthDakota]

Totally forgot I booked a hotel room for Friday and Saturday night in South Bend a few months ago in case we were the Friday night game. Reluctantly and sadly had to cancel it when I got the notification on my phone

How much was the room?

My 9th grade civics teacher was an Ohio State guy. Awesome dude. Knew I was a big ND fan. Told me he'd stay in South Bend on his annual drive back to Cleveland because "rooms are basically free other than six Fridays and Saturdays in the fall."

 

[rtrn2glory]

I got one close for $350 a night. We were gonna hope for a home game and if not, just party nearby for the first round

 

[Dale]

 

[Dale]

Wait so the special treatment didn’t stop at ND???????

I’m shocked…..

 

[Dale]

This portion of the MOU is just a conference championship weekend insurance policy. Basically if a team makes the conference championship with a shitty resume, it doesn’t knock out ND or any P4 conference out of a spot.

 

[SouthernLeprachaun]

I disagree with this on principle, even though it would have helped us out in this case. If we're taking the top 5 conference champions, then it should be the top 5 regardless of conference. Duke had no business smelling the playoffs - James Madison won 12 games (granted, against very poor competition), and their lack of name or poor conference shouldn't automatically hold them out. If the ACC can't get its act together, then its champions don't deserve to be granted an automatic spot, even if that leads to bizarre scenarios bumping teams out of the playoffs.

 

[KMac151993]

The ACC "fixed" their tiebreakers so under this hypothetical Miami would have played Virginia.

 

[DomerInHappyValley]

I disagree with this on principle, even though it would have helped us out in this case. If we're taking the top 5 conference champions, then it should be the top 5 regardless of conference. Duke had no business smelling the playoffs - James Madison won 12 games (granted, against very poor competition), and their lack of name or poor conference shouldn't automatically hold them out. If the ACC can't get its act together, then its champions don't deserve to be granted an automatic spot, even if that leads to bizarre scenarios bumping teams out of the playoffs.

I mean being realistic only the SEC and BIG 10 champion deserves an AQ spot.
Every other conference is shit.

The PAC12 isn't even a G5 at this point. And we all know how the ACC has fallen off.

 

[rtrn2glory]

I don't see why the automatic qualifier from each power 4 has to be the conference champion. Just have the committee make sure there's at least one representative from each and then go from there

 

[IrishTusker]

Again, they will just bump us to 13 to avoid that rule kicking in. It's interesting that Swarbrick designed this system. He doesn't seem to have noticed the minefields for ND all over the place, which blew up in our face this year.

First, the committee itself is the main problem. They will always under-rank ND, because they are made up of people who have a financial interest in keeping ND out in favor of another conference member. It's no accident that if you compare ND's rank in committee ranking with its rank in the AP poll, Coaches' poll, FPI, FEI, SP+, Sagarin, etc., ND is ranked lowest in the committee ranking. This is probably not the last time that is going to happen. A better approach is the BCS ranking, which relies on more data and is not nearly as susceptible to lobbying.

Second, the auto-bids should end. ND will never qualify for those, anyway, so long as it is independent; all they can do is bump ND out. Just put in the top 12, 16, etc., teams. This does not "discriminate" against the G5; they can qualify like anyone else if they are ranked highly enough.

Third, there is no clear rule about how CCGs count in the rankings. If CCGs don't count, then freeze the rankings before the CCGs, so they only determine auto-bids. Or, count CCGs for everyone. The current rule -effectively, CCGs count for everyone except Bama- is not tenable.

The most important fix is to scrap the committee and replace it with the BCS or something similar. Short of that, expansion to 16 would protect ND when it is under-ranked.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

 

[bloomstar39]

This topic is beating a dead horse. 2 thoughts:
1) I can't believe the lack of pushback on the H2H arguments made by those in favor of Miami. I don't think agree it was just the "process" being broken, the actual ranking was messed up logically. H2H is 1 data point alongside the full resume (sure, had they had comparable resume's but even still, were talking about dominance, win streaks, etc and that was the first game by 3 points). How about just about every poll alone? How about Miami's 2 losses compared to ND's?
2) I haven't seen it discussed much either but I am confident the committee members may not have even acknowledged it in their conversations, but quietly I imagine members with teams from their conference in the playoffs knew ND was on fire and ready for another run to the championship game and they couldn't stand their team(s) again being left out at the hands of ND like last year. We were basically the most complete team outside OSU and maybe Indiana at that point.

 

[IrishSteelhead]

Heather Dinich:

Yes, this is from Reddit

No, I didn’t listen to it myself

Investigate further yourself if you doubt it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[irish2104]

Always felt like Heather was one of the only espn personalities that was fair

 

[stlnd01]

Heather Dinich:

Yes, this is from Reddit

No, I didn’t listen to it myself

Investigate further yourself if you doubt it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I didn't follow individual journalists closely enough to recall who said what about whom, but I was under the impression that Dinich was one of the more supportive of us in the closing weeks of the season. Certainly compared with people like Bruce Feldman who were totally in the tank for Miami.

Regardless, either way, the actually rigged game here wasn't Miami over Notre Dame, it was Bama over both Miami and Notre Dame.

 

[TNUtoNotreDame]

Always felt like Heather was one of the only espn personalities that was fair

Well her forehead is suspicious

 

[Bishop2b5]

I read something today that made me wonder if all of this isn't a lot simpler and has nothing to do with ND. The idea was basically that the committee was never going to leave out the champion and runner up of the SEC or B1G, and ND's and Miami's resumes were close enough that it was just H2H that was the deciding factor. Nothing personal, nothing against ND. Just top 2 from the big boys and H2H with Miami.

 

[ND88]

& This is the bullshit that they wanted to parade ND around with, after they conveniently left them out of the CFP, after telling them for 5+ weeks that they were included in…

This is the most cynical I've been about the sport. As far as I am concerned, destroy all bowl games and destroy all conference championship games. They are all bullshit.

 

[ColoradoIrish]

I read something today that made me wonder if all of this isn't a lot simpler and has nothing to do with ND. The idea was basically that the committee was never going to leave out the champion and runner up of the SEC or B1G, and ND's and Miami's resumes were close enough that it was just H2H that was the deciding factor. Nothing personal, nothing against ND. Just top 2 from the big boys and H2H with Miami.

Wasn't there like a 4 way tie for first in the SEC? The conference definitely rigged their schedules to ensure the maximum number of teams would be in the playoff discussion. No team that has multiple double digit losses ever deserves to be in the playoffs. Not to mention they have a third loss and only 9 wins vs FBS opponents. ESPN and SEC clearly stacked the deck to get the maximum number of teams in. ACC attempted it too, but they're dog shit at everything they do, so it blew up in their face.

If there's going to be automatic qualifiers, there needs to be automatic disqualifiers. Multiple double digit losses should be one of them. Having two losses and one of them being double digit lose to a team with a losing record should be as well, and not having 10 wins against FBS should be another.

It's a an absolute joke that sec continues to get the benefit of the doubt when they don't deserve it at all. And it's all because of the obvious collusion between the conference and ESPN.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Wasn't there like a 4 way tie for first in the SEC? The conference definitely rigged their schedules to ensure the maximum number of teams would be in the playoff discussion. No team that has multiple double digit losses ever deserves to be in the playoffs. Not to mention they have a third loss and only 9 wins vs FBS opponents. ESPN and SEC clearly stacked the deck to get the maximum number of teams in. ACC attempted it too, but they're dog shit at everything they do, so it blew up in their face.

If there's going to be automatic qualifiers, there needs to be automatic disqualifies. Multiple double digit losses should be one of them. Having two losses and one of them being double digit lose to a team with a losing record should be as well, and not having 10 wins against FBS should be another.

It's a an absolute joke that sec continues to get the benefit of the doubt when they don't deserve it at all. And it's all because of the obvious collusion between the conference and ESPN.

And wouldn’t u know the two teams most similar face off in the first round. OU & Bama couldn’t put together a championship offense if they combined their squads. Bama will likely win b/c it’s so tough to beat a team twice & Bama had no business losing the first time but just like ND w/ aTm, they have no one to blame but themselves. Of course, they get another crack at it & when they beat OU all will be forgotten how their season was bookended by two blowout losses.

 

[ColoradoIrish]

And wouldn’t u know the two teams most similar face off in the first round. OU & Bama couldn’t put together a championship offense if they combined their squads. Bama will likely win b/c it’s so tough to beat a team twice & Bama had no business losing the first time but just like ND w/ aTm, they have no one to blame but themselves. Of course, they get another crack at it & when they beat OU all will be forgotten how their season was bookended by two blowout losses.

I don't think Oklahoma is very good, but if Alabama continues to be unable to run the ball I don't see how they win.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

I don't think Oklahoma is very good, but if Alabama continues to be unable to run the ball I don't see how they win.

Alabama dominated offensivery in the box score. I think they rolled up over 400 yds off offense to OU’s barely getting over 200 yds on offense. The three turnovers killed them. I don’t know if they’re still blaming Mateer’s lack of production on his injured hand but he’s horrible & if it’s due to that injury, OU should’ve been voted out ala FSU from 2023…he’s that inept.

 

[ColoradoIrish]

Alabama dominated offensivery in the box score. I think they rolled up over 400 yds off offense to OU’s barely getting over 200 yds on offense. The three turnovers killed them. I don’t know if they’re still blaming Mateer’s lack of production on his injured hand but he’s horrible & if it’s due to that injury, OU should’ve been voted out ala FSU from 2023…he’s that inept.

I totally get that and don't disagree. I just don't see Alabama somehow magically getting better on offense. They've been dog shit on offense for the last month and a half (outside of them playing fcs Eastern Illinois). I wouldn't be surprised if they win because I think Oklahoma is trash as well.