Hey, now. Christmas comes early in 2022!
https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/1482029280855011330
I feel something of the death row inmate who gets a last-minute reprieve from the governor.
Thanks, Jim! Oh — take your time hashing out those more pressing issues. Sounds like they could take the better part of a decade to solve.
Get The Picture 
I’d like to believe that he’s serious about addressing those issues because they are in dire need of fixing, but these guys haven’t given me any reason that they’re really concerned about the good of the game. It’s about the money.
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It’s about forcing Notre Dame to join up.
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Exactly. If they expand, ND never has to join a conference and the ACC gets stuck with their super crappy TV deal.
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Not exactly. It all has to do with the number of at-large bids. The SEC and Big Ten want a 12-team tournament with 6 automatic bids and 6 at-large bids. The ACC wants an 8-team tournament with only 2 automatic bids. If you’re Notre Dame, the former means never having to join a conference because you only have to be one of the 6 best non-champs. The latter means that window gets a lot skinnier and you’re trying to be ranked above the #2 teams in the Big Ten and the SEC to be able to get in.
The Big XII and Pac-12, OTOH, just want to get one slot at this point, so they’re fine with any model that guarantees them a slot.
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Entrance of ut and ou into the sec is making $$$$$ during the season, as it stands, the sec ca$h cow i$ UGA football or the bammers, the two that will actually bring the trophy to the sec, that’s it…expanding for the sec, makes little $en$e, never said I knew whats good for the sec…GO DAWGS!
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Irish are never going to do it.
ACC should add Army and Navy and get a new deal.
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Clemson supports this … 2 more doormats for them to run over and around. 🙂
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They have a really crappy TV deal with years to go. Currently they have Clemson only likely to make the CFP. It’s follow the money always in CFB. In short expanding the playoffs helps others more than the ACC until that changes their against expansion. For me that’s a good thing. If there ever becomes a time when more than four teams are worthy I may change my opinion.
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Good to hear. Hopefully expansion can be stopped.
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Whatever the reason, it works for me. Screw playoff expansion.
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I have little faith that this is the death knell for expansion. But maybe it is at least delayed and isn’t implemented prior the termination of the existing deal. Best case scenario is that there is no ability to compromise and there is another ten year or so deal with four teams.
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Things they need to change before expansion:
1) Talk to the NFL, which has extended its own season and have them back off playing on Saturday the last week of their season. Then move the National Title Game to that Saturday, starting at 6pm. Remind the NFL that you provide them a free minor league system and it’s in their best interests to work with you.
2) Bring all the bowls and ESPN together and work out a way to provide players NIL deals as part of their participation in bowl games. $5K for everyone player in a non-playoff, non-NY6 bowls. $10K for the NY6 bowls. $15K for the first round of the playoff. $25K for the Natty. When you have the Sun Bowl in El Paso giving $3M to each school, the schools can afford to take $400K and give it to their players.
3) Work to have CFB-wide NIL rules that would make illegal the NIL deals like the one the Texas boosters set up to pay o-lineman $50K just to go to Texas. It’s ridiculous and completely contrary to the spirit of NIL. Let kids hawk Zaxbys and Used Cars and everything else. But using your oil money to give kids money for doing nothing else but signing with your school is supposed to be illegal.
4) Create a transfer portal windows. Once September 1st comes, no one can enter the portal. Once Army is done playing Navy, the next day, the portal opens. It closes again on March 1st. It then reopens on June 1st, and again, runs through August 31st. This will give coaches some ability to manage their rosters and keep kids from making mistakes.
5) Make it so coaches can’t automatically pull a scholarship when a kid enters the portal. Give the kids a grace period. One week is good enough. Seven calendar days to pull their names back out of the portal.
6) No team ranked in the top-5 should play more than ONCE at noon. Fucking ESPN.
Do all this shit first, THEN worry about expanding the playoff.
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Oh, and 7) Get rid of Early Signing Day. It’s ruined the end of the CFB season with all the firings way too early. Get rid of the February Signing Day, too. Make ONE signing day. Make it the Wednesday a full week after the National Title Game. There you go.
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As PTC said below, I don’t think that the NFL is getting rid of those Saturday games that they have in late December and in January. Those Saturday games don’t quite double the number of eyeballs since some fans of a particular team playing on Sunday in week 18 might not watch the Saturday games, but they definitely pick up a lot more eyeballs by having more television product that on regular and cable-type channels like ESPN in week 18 and like on Saturday, 12/18 and 12/25 this season.
As for early signing day and making one signing day. I agree. I also agree about portal entrance being limited to between certain dates.
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Not sure about putting signing day just after the championship game…
But if we can get them to simply agree to not run the bottom line during SEC games, I’d take that as part of the package.
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ESPN just paid big money for the NFL doubleheader on the Saturday you speak of..they ain’t going no where, IMHO….they put those on ESPN and ABC.
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Will the NFL talk to the CFP crowd? The NFL is by far the most profitable football enterprise in America. The networks know that Saturday NFL games will have better ratings than The CFP first round game the Alamo Bowl.
What leverage does the CFP crowd have to convince the NFL not to take network money for playing on Saturdays? Remind them that they draft college players? What will the conference commissioners do if the NFL says, “no, we will continue to play on Saturdays and we will continue to draft college football players. ” How are the conference commissioners going to stop them? Stop playing college football? Decline television contracts and do as the Ivy League and show games on a streaming service?
The Million Dollar a year commissioners may be altruistic enough to downsize college football in order to make a point to the NFL, but imagine after they go home and let their Wives know that the money spigot has turned off.”Honey, remember when we were young and after you finished cosmetology school you dreamed of opening your own salon? Now you can chase your dream since I ain’t making a Million a year anymore.”
Let me know which person making big bucks from college football will follow your lead.
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Never underestimate the stupidity of the managers of college football. The ACC’s stated reason is obviously bull-crap, but I’m not sure I see how this advances their widely reported true agenda of forcing Notre Dame into their conference. This won’t stop expansion, only delay it. Seems pretty unlikely ND is going to cave in three years when they’ve made it this far. And the ACC will lose what little leverage it has once the negotiations move from altering an existing deal to creating a new one.
It’ll be fascinating to see the fortunes of the SEC and ACC over the next couple decades. FSU and Clemson have had some great success the last 10 years, but the financial situation is moving rapidly in the wrong direction for them. They are a Clemson program collapse away from potentially becoming the big 12.
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Even if this is all about forcing ND into the ACC, I’d love to understand the true calculus going in Phillips’ head. Notwithstanding Clemson (maybe), keeping the CFP still well out of ACC teams’ reach doesn’t seem to be a winning strategy if they want ND or a better deal. Feels like he has completely misread the situation. No complaints here, though.
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I am very concerned about the effect of NIL has had on recruiting. I have heard from numerous sources that Texas A&M raised over $30 million for NIL to attract top recruits. Think about what this will do to the game. If we are going to pay players lets level the field and cap payments. I agree with bonus money for the bowl games. Maybe so many people will not opt out.
A few years ago, offering cash to sign with a school would have been illegal now it seems that it is the wave of the future.
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My concern also.
If this becomes a bidding war (if it hasn’t already) then it’s going to change a lot of schools’ attractiveness (or lack of it) for players. And green will be the grease on the portal’s skids. And who can blame the kids?
Jimbo isn’t exactly a charismatic guy but look at that recruiting class!
The shape of things to come? Or a one-off lucky talent grab?
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In hindsight, Jimbo was the perfect hire for TAMU. He already developed a model for salaried players at FSU. NIL just let him copy/paste that into public view.
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I seriously doubt Bowl quitters has much to do with TV ratings…
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This should reduce the motivation of Texas and OU to jump ship early.
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I doubt that. If this is about playoff access, SG, OU would never consider realignment. They have a Clemson type of path to the CFP in most years regardless of expansion. This is purely about TV rights money and nothing else.
OU and UT want out of the Big 12 as soon as possible.
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Reading the replies to that tweet, seems to say that the majority of people are in favor of an expanded playoff….it’s coming, just what form we get is up for grabs.
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Never have I been a bigger fan of Notre Dame OR the Atlantic Coast Conference. May they keep one another deadlocked on this issue in perpetuity.
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Not sure he checked with the Alliance before his announcement.
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Translation:
“So, Our ‘Alliance’ with the B10 & Pac12, once the B12 lost OK & Texas to the bully SEC and stole the best remaing G5 programs, means we would like to request more time to put some major lipstick on our pigs that finished outside the top 12 final poll…”
https://www.espn.com/college-football/rankings
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The thing is each of the Power 5 would have gotten their champions in with 12-team proposal. The problem for Phillips is that Notre Dame’s share wouldn’t go into the ACC’s revenue sharing pool. Between post-season shares and the ACC’s lousy TV deal, he needs ND in for football.
The playoff would have been under the Sankey proposal:
1) Bama
2) Mich
3) Cincy
4) Baylor
5) UGA
6) ND
7) OSU
8) Ole Miss
9) Ok St
10) MSU
11) Utah
12) Pitt
Under the “alliance” proposal:
1) Bama
2) Michigan
3) UGA
4) Cincy
5) ND
6) Baylor
7) Utah
8) Pitt
In 2021, neither proposal makes football membership attractive to ND.
Phillips is acting like a brat (I’m doubting he and Swarbrick are on speaking terms at this point). Kevin Warren is still the teenager with hurt fee-fees over Texas and Oklahoma.
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Health and safety – lol
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After watching the national title game and seeing just how violent the game was, there’s a legitimate concern that playing many more games with that much on the line could definitely be bad for your health. But once Jim gets what he’s looking for on the bottom line it’s going to be remarkable how fast that concern evaporates.
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The full quote was “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.”
Jim Phillips
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The ACC wants the playoff format to push ND into a conference for football. He wants 6 automatic bids in an 8-team playoff to freeze out ND. He gets to rip up his lousy TV deal with the addition of the Irish.
It’s as simple as that. May the ACC be on the outside looking in for the next 4 years.
I’m not an expansion advocate, but the Sankey 12-team proposal is a pretty darn good one.
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Still got a couple extras for today. Freebies. . . markann at gmail
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