Enhance

Because there isn't a double standard. The differences between these two situations are fairly perceptible. Bunch has no chance to start (outside of injuries) and he's weighing his options in December. Gebbia lost a QB battle and transferred a week before the season started. I don't begrudge Gebbia his decision, however, there's no question he put the team in a considerably tight spot. Bunch's departure at this point wouldn't carry the same weight.

Definitely a wise move if he's looking to get playing time. Martinez is a lock for at least the next two seasons (barring injury) and they'll have decent depth with Vedral and McCaffrey.

The overall record may be comparable between the east/west but there's no debating the balance of power is weighted in the east. The top four programs in the conference (in terms of history, hardware, recruiting, etc.) are tOSU, Michigan, PSU and Nebraska. Those are also probably the four 'best jobs,' in the correct order in the conference, too. Three of them are in the east. Simply put - the east has more programs better positioned to be routine players at the elite level of college football. The west does not. To @Saunders point, I think the difference is partly perception, partly reality. The SEC east has several nationally prominent programs. The B1G west doesn't. And the recruiting rankings are far more comparable in the SEC than the B1G. According to Rivals, and using only these two conferences, here are the best recruiting teams of the past five years: B1G East: - Ohio State (#2) - Michigan (T#18 - there's one ranking of 55 here that heavily skews their data - they've had three top 5 classes in the last five years) - Penn State (#21) - Michigan State (#27) - Maryland (#37) B1G West - Nebraska (#22) - Wisconsin (#40) - Iowa (#49) SEC East - Georgia (#5) - Florida (#10) - Tennessee (#12) - South Carolina (T#18) - Kentucky (T#25) - Missouri (#38) - Vanderbilt (#45) SEC West - Alabama (#1) - LSU (#4) - Auburn (#7) - Texas A&M (#9) - Ole Miss (T#16) - Mississippi State (#23) - Arkansas (T#25) The SEC west is certainly top heavy but they appear to be on a much more fair playing field overall.

We do a small get together with my dad's side of the family on xmas eve (small because there just aren't a lot of them) and same with my mom's side. We then bustle over to my wife's family later in the evening on xmas eve for a grander get together as she has a lot more family. Christmas Day itself is always the quiet day. When I was a kid, it was just my mom, dad, sister and I at home all day, playing with our new toys or watching movies. Now, my wife and I like to spend a relaxing day at home.

I still can't really decide how I feel about this. I used to be hardcore against CCG AQ's because of the 2012 Wiscy situation, but, I also don't think we've really seen a situation like that since. Part of me wonders if it's an anomaly I'd be OK with and if my main dislike for it is just because it's Wisconsin. I think you saw this in the other playoff thread, but likely contenders this year would've been: 1. Alabama 2. Clemson 3. Oklahoma 4. Ohio State 5. Washington 6. Notre Dame 7. Georgia 8. UCF Now, I think this meets almost every single requirement you put forth, but this also would've been the particular result this year even if we didn't limit it to Top 12 finishes. The team to likely complain the loudest would be Michigan but Georgia did finish ranked higher in the final CFP rankings.

Perhaps. You don't see many (if any) elite NFL prospects opting to forgo the CFP. Playing for a national championship and the exposure on that level is far more lucrative to a college athlete than the Gator or Insight Bowl. Furthermore, an eight team playoff only increases the potential number of games by one to a possibility of 15 if you're including the CCG. That's the exact number of games the NDSU Bison have played every year given their routine presence in the national title game.

That would certainly be a point of debate, however I built my hypothetical scenario off the final CFP rankings that had Georgia ranked higher than Michigan. Either way, I think the overall point holds true - both of those teams dropped the ball and had their fate out of their hands. The hypothetical result would be far more appetizing. To your other point, I sometimes look back fondly on the bowl system too, but I'm glad it no longer holds the same weight. If college football had been started this year, we wouldn't have built the bowl structure. We would've built it like almost every single major sport in this country with a playoff. Bowls are an archaic system that fit the needs of their era.

To play Devil's Advocate a bit, the teams that likely would've made the playoff this year in an eight team system would be (1-5 are the P5 champs, 6-7 are the at-large bids, and 8 is the non-P5 champ): 1. Alabama 2. Clemson 3. Oklahoma 4. Ohio State 5. Washington 6. Notre Dame 7. Georgia 8. UCF I don't have much of a problem with that at all. The only really good team being left out is Michigan. To their credit, their only losses came to two CFP contenders, but they were in complete control of their destiny almost all year and didn't get it done. It would largely be their fault if they missed out on the CFP in this scenario. We all agree any system is going to be flawed and there's probably going to be at least one team every year that got goofed over. But, the aforementioned hypothetical is a much easier pill to swallow than what we have this year and satiates a ton of griping IMO.

Roster turnover is incredibly common when you look at a recruiting class in totality. The best teams typically retain perhaps 60-70% of a recruiting class. So, if you sign a class of 25 kids and approximately 15 of them are still on the team after a few years, you're going to feel pretty good about yourself. If it's true that he's lost four players from his first class, it's likely he'll lose approximately half of a dozen others before that class' time here is up.

Two major problems: 1) Universities will take TV money even if their teams suck, so trying to get them to think about the sanctity of the sport is irrelevant. On their 'things we're concerned about' board, deprivation of student athletes is somewhere around getting Dolores' favorite pen out from under the break room fridge. 1) Major programs won't want to throw themselves into a gauntlet. The SEC is mighty comfortable with their 8-game conference schedule, mid-November cupcakes, and path to the CFP.

Completely agree and, ultimately, that's the biggest problem. Based on the data I pulled together above, the more recent elite B1G teams would've benefited directly (tOSU, MU, etc.) with an additional chance at a conference title. It really boils down to excitement, revenue, and ratings. If the league felt good about the matchup last Saturday then we wouldn't be having this conversation. The problems: Nebraska isn't very good, Wisconsin isn't very sexy or nationally appealing even when they are good, and neither is Northwestern. This also goes back to what I said above that the current division splits are, in my opinion, ludicrous. The east has three traditional powers in one division and only one in the west, and the one in the west hasn't had it's you-know-what together for 20 years.

Of course there's a difference, but going off of the tweet that started this whole thing, Delaney talked about best teams - not best records. Using 'records' is a bit disingenuous to the conversation. There'd probably be a slew of non-divisional tiebreakers put into place with this system, but it'd be somewhat convoluted since there wouldn't be a round robin. Since NW, MU, tOSU and Purdue all beat at least one of each other, but didn't all play each other, a tiebreaker would probably come into place to benefit Michigan since they had the better overall record and played tougher conference opponents. (Better record is currently a high priority tiebreaker in the B1G standings, so I imagine it would maintain such if they got rid of the divisional tiebreakers). I agree that it would be really lame/boring if MU and tOSU played a week after their rivalry game, but it's very possible in a 'best team' scenario, and I sort of think that's why they're talking about changing it. B1G officials probably looked at the Texas/OU rematch and thought 'why can't we have that?'

I think the answer to this is, unfortunately, pretty easy - the conference would prioritize the rivalries they feel matter and sacrifice the others. Case in point - the Big 12 prioritized the Texas/OU rivalry vs. the NU/OU one.

The hit at 1:32 where he crosses the pylon and gets leveled... you can tell dude just got rocked and is in no mood to celebrate anything except that he still has his life.

I think one of the biggest allure's of Frost's offense is the flexibility, creativity, and available touches for skill position players. He can show kids the stat sheets and explain where he wants to go and how he wants to use them. I think that's how he's selling so many high value skill athletes by basically saying 'hey, we have a lot of touches to go around and we have our quarterback of the future who did X as a true freshman."