“Everyone has the same feeling; expansion is inevitable.”

EXCLUSIVE: Fed up with SEC favoritism and UCF's treatment, some important commissioners, presidents and ADs are ready to talk 8-team playoff.

Here's @NicoleAuerbach's report. https://t.co/jk1JKnPY22

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 12, 2018

The Atlantic Athletic ($$) has a piece up about how “a number of influential voices in college football are calling for a serious look at [CFP] expansion.”

My favorite two parts are a quote…

In a statement to The Athletic on Tuesday, an ESPN spokesperson said, “We have no involvement in the competitive makeup of the CFP.”

… and a proposal to include a designated Group of 5 spot in an eight-team field in exchange for the end of conference championship games.  I’m sure Greg Sankey is down with that trade-off.

Per Bob Bowlsby, “Then, there’s the matter of how you do it. The devil’s always in the details.”

There are a lot of devils in college football these days.

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Your 12.12.18 Playpen

People, before we make a big deal about 15-year olds saying offensive things years later during their moment in the spotlight, how ’bout first we hold actual adults responsible for the trash they spout now?

Okay, I’ve vented.  Feel better now for that.  The floor is yours.

“I still think Tyson Campbell is a really good football player.”

Man, Tyson, I give you credit for honesty, but I’m not sure I would have said this out loud:

Campbell feels like he has identified his primary problem.

“I panic sometimes,” he said last week.

Seriously, he’s got a good attitude.  If nothing else, Stokes’ rise in the ranks should serve as inspiration for improvement.  Campbell sure as hell has the physical talent to succeed.

Today, in business decisions

I await the righteous condemnations from the “kids who sit out bowl games suck” crowd for Scott Satterfield’s decision to revoke a number of scholarship offers made by Bobby Petrino.

At least two of the Louisville football program’s 2019 recruits were “thrown for a loop” Sunday night when the incoming coaching staff informed them they would not honor the players’ scholarship offers.

Four players —  athlete Anthony Adkins, guard Jack Randolph, wide receiver Stanley King, defensive tackle Denzel Daxon — have now reopened their recruitment. Those changes represent the first movement in Louisville’s recruiting class since the introduction of new coach Scott Satterfield on Tuesday.

Randolph said he received a call from recruiting staffer Pete Nochta, who informed him that “they were just looking to go in a different direction offensive line-wise, and told me I didn’t have the length or the weight to play in their system, so they pulled their scholarship,” Randolph said.

After the news Sunday night, a parent of another prospect said, “The answer that was given to (recruits) was they’re trying to go in a totally different direction than anything Bobby Petrino wanted or had going on. So basically they’re cutting them? Because Petrino recruited them?”

Would it be better to go there, not play because you’re a bad fit for the new system and then get bounced?  At least Satterfield made the call as early as he could, to give these kids the maximum amount of time to regroup, instead of stringing them along until something better turned up on the recruiting trail.

It’s the world we live in now, peeps.  Best get used to scenes inside the sausage factory.

Fake juice at Alabama?

Clearly, it was a huge mistake on Kyler Murray’s part to accept the Heisman Trophy.

… And now the Heisman has somehow become College Football Playoff bulletin board material for Alabama, a team that’s already a two-touchdown favorite against Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl on Dec. 29. You can bet Alabama strength coach Scott Cochran, known for his supercharged motivational tactics, will have a field day with this one.

History will judge Murray’s selfish action harshly, no doubt, should the spunky underdog Tide pull out a miracle win against Oklahoma.

How do you know you’re dealing with an overmatched athletic director?

When the school blames an epically bad buyout clause on the coach’s agent.

And not for Mike MacIntyre, who is set to make more money than he ever has in his life over the next three years despite his termination last month at the University of Colorado.

After making $2.9 in guaranteed pay during his last season at CU, he now is set to collect about $4.9 million a year over the next three years, including paychecks from CU and his new job as defensive coordinator at Ole Miss. Ole Miss confirmed to USA TODAY it will pay MacIntyre $1.5 million a year over the next three years.

Colorado athletics spokesman David Plati also confirmed to USA TODAY that CU is on the hook to pay MacIntyre his full contract buyout of $10.3 million in monthly payments through 2021. His contract at Colorado initially was signed shortly after his hiring in late 2012 and said he had a duty to obtain new employment in the event of his firing from CU. It also said that the buyout owed to him would be reduced by any amounts he received as a college head coach, NFL head coach or NFL assistant coach.

In this case, he did not get one of those jobs and instead took a demotion as a college assistant coach. Therefore CU is on the hook to pay him the full buyout, setting him up to become far richer for being fired than he would have been if he had been retained at Colorado, at least over the next three years. That’s up to $4.9 million in average combined pay per year…

Asked why CU limited a buyout reduction to those specific job ranks, athletics spokesman Plati said, “that’s the latest with head coaches” and suggested it came from MacIntyre’s agent.

Like taking candy from a baby…

And these morons try to pretend they’re the smartest guys in the room.

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UPDATE:  You really can’t make this shit up.

State law prohibits any higher education employee to be contracted for more than five years. So why did University of Colorado Board of Regents approve a six-year contract for new football coach Mel Tucker on Wednesday?

In a word: oops.

Wednesday morning, the board voted 6-2 in favor of Tucker’s contract to run Jan. 1, 2019 through Dec. 31, 2024. That’s six years. Based on the language of the approved contract, which includes annual raises of $275,000, the deal is worth $18.5 million rather than $14.8 million.

However, Ken McConnellogue, CU’s vice president of communications, told The Denver Post the extra year was an oversight and the contract will be amended to run through 2023.

Unbelievable?  Of course not; it’s totally believable.

Morons.