Between The Eers: Big 12 + ACC Screwed Again?
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:10 Good Friday everybody as it is another episode here on Between Ears.
00:14 I'm Skylar Callahan of Mountaineers Now and SI, a fan nation channel.
00:20 And look, we've had a lot of stuff go on this week.
00:22 We've talked a lot about basketball.
00:25 The Neil Brown stuff came up with the new contract extension.
00:28 So I really haven't got to get into this whole college football
00:32 playoff bull crap that's been going on.
00:36 So we're gonna get into that today here on Feisty Friday here on Between Ears.
00:40 Make sure you can support our channel by giving us a like and
00:45 subscribing to us at Mountaineers Now on YouTube.
00:49 And giving us a follow on X at that very same handle.
00:53 So if you haven't heard, the college football playoff is expanding from 4 to 12.
01:00 We already know that.
01:01 That was already gonna happen this year.
01:03 That's gonna come into play in 2024.
01:07 However, that may not last but a year or two.
01:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]
01:14 The committee is already discussing and
01:18 conjunction with the power conferences.
01:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]
01:25 Moving to a 14 team playoff and I'm okay with it.
01:30 Look, I know it's starting to seem like we're getting bigger and bigger and
01:34 bigger and I know that everyone's gonna start saying, well,
01:37 you might as well just put 68 teams in like they do in college basketball.
01:40 That will never happen, should never happen.
01:43 And we don't have to even discuss that.
01:47 The largest I think this thing should ever go is 16.
01:51 We see 16 teams make the playoffs in just about everything.
01:56 The NFL, NBA, which NBA is more than 16 now.
02:01 NHL, Major League Baseball, it's about half that, or it's about that.
02:08 And when you look at every single sport out there,
02:13 literally 50% or damn near close to it,
02:17 50% of the teams in those leagues make the playoffs.
02:22 [BLANK_AUDIO]
02:23 But in college football, up until 2024, that is, that you only had four.
02:30 Four out of 134.
02:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]
02:35 So I don't understand why people get upset when this thing gets pushed out.
02:41 Because before you had 0.029%,
02:47 not even 1% of teams make the college football playoff.
02:55 Where everywhere else we're playing 50% of the teams in the playoffs.
03:02 Again, I don't advocate for that to happen necessarily in college football.
03:06 That would be entirely way too much, way too many games.
03:10 And just wouldn't make sense.
03:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]
03:14 But 12?
03:16 Sure, 14?
03:18 Yeah, why not?
03:19 16?
03:20 Yeah, okay.
03:22 Anything past that?
03:23 No.
03:23 16's enough.
03:25 But 14, it's kind of like a little bit of a sweet spot because it's,
03:32 I think even at 16, you're starting to kind of get into that territory.
03:37 And it's only two more teams.
03:39 But you're kind of getting into that territory of, okay,
03:43 how much are we just trying to cater here to make sure that the Big Ten and
03:48 the SEC generate as many dollars as possible?
03:52 And I guess we could kind of say that already about them trying to go from 12
03:58 to 14, that's probably the biggest reason behind it.
04:01 But then, it wasn't just the 14 team thing that kind of threw me off.
04:07 How it was already coming up about.
04:09 It was the automatic buys that the Big Ten and SEC are proposing, okay?
04:18 So we heard about the 14 team playoff first.
04:22 I didn't think much of it.
04:23 I was like, yeah, what the hell?
04:25 It's only two more teams, it doesn't really matter.
04:26 But this is what really got me going, all right?
04:33 The Big Ten and the SEC have proposed a 3-3-2-2-1 model.
04:38 In which the Big Ten and the SEC get three spots.
04:46 The Big 12 and the ACC get two bids, the group of five gets one bid.
04:52 That's just part of it.
04:55 Let's take a step back here.
05:00 The second part of it is that the Big Ten and
05:05 SEC would be the only two to be able to have the guaranteed first round buy.
05:13 What?
05:15 Excuse me?
05:17 Come again?
05:20 The Big Ten and the SEC are going to be the only two that get the automatic buy?
05:25 Come on, what are we doing now?
05:30 Let's take a step back and go to the 3-3-2-2-1 model first before I really
05:36 start to hammer that BS nonsense of the automatic buys.
05:39 So it may not sound fair that the Big Ten and
05:47 the SEC, they get an extra bid or whatever, but let's be honest.
05:52 Those are the two most, and
05:57 I think we can probably look at the data and say,
06:01 those are probably the two toughest conferences in college football in years
06:05 past, and especially with the realignment that you have going on.
06:08 You have Oregon going to the Big Ten, you have UCLA and
06:15 USC moving to the Big Ten, that's going to be a pretty powerful conference.
06:21 The SEC's been powerful, you're going to add Texas and Oklahoma.
06:25 And with the size of those leagues, it makes sense to give them three each.
06:31 I'm not going to go up against that and argue that or anything like that.
06:37 So I think that makes sense.
06:38 Giving the Big 12 and the SEC, or Big 12 and the ACC two, I'm fine with.
06:45 Again, it's one less, but you're getting an extra opportunity.
06:50 It's one more now than you have.
06:54 And if that means giving the Big Ten and the SEC who essentially run the damn show
06:59 one more extra bid than you, so be it.
07:02 It's going to happen anyways.
07:03 They're going to rule this whole thing anyway, so
07:06 you might as well take what they give you.
07:08 The group of five, I mean, it's one.
07:11 So personally, I think it makes sense giving the Big Ten and
07:17 the SEC that extra bid because, and people are up in arms about this,
07:23 but let's be honest, even if we just go with the 14 best teams, right?
07:29 There's no designation to any conference.
07:32 This is probably similar to what we're going to see anyway.
07:36 We're probably going to see three Big Ten, probably going to see three SEC,
07:42 probably going to see two Big 12 and two ACC and one group of five.
07:46 It's probably about the average of what it's going to look like.
07:49 And maybe some years it's a little different.
07:51 Some years you may have four SEC or three Big 12 or three ACC.
07:58 Probably not going to see two group of fives, but you get the point.
08:04 So I think putting it into this model of 3-3-2-2-1 is interesting.
08:09 But I'm still a huge proponent
08:16 of just putting the freaking best teams in it.
08:20 It doesn't have to go by conference.
08:23 And I think this is, again, it's all coming back to money.
08:29 These conferences, they want to make as much money as possible.
08:31 They want to be guaranteed money.
08:33 They want to kind of know going into it, hey, we're always going to have this many
08:37 people or these many schools in the playoff.
08:40 From their perspective, yes, I get it.
08:43 But what is the point of the playoff if we're not putting the best teams in it?
08:48 That's the whole reason why we go from four to 12 in the first place.
08:53 Because this past college football playoff, they got it wrong.
08:58 I'm sorry, you can say Florida State was not deserving.
09:03 Dude, they won with their second and third string freaking quarterbacks.
09:08 If they can win with their second and third string quarterbacks,
09:11 I think they deserve to be in.
09:13 That shows that their depth is really good.
09:17 Now, we can make all these assumptions and throw out all these hypotheticals.
09:21 Well, Florida State would have got their butts kicked in the first game.
09:24 And yeah, you know what?
09:26 They probably might have.
09:27 But there's a reason why they played the damn games on the field.
09:32 And let's just be real here.
09:36 There's blowouts in the first round of the college football playoff damn near
09:40 every year, regardless of teams that have their starting quarterbacks or not.
09:46 And there's been some blowouts in the championships last year,
09:50 Michigan TCU, or Georgia TCU, I'm sorry.
09:55 So why are we worried about putting in a team because they may not have their
10:01 starting quarterback or not?
10:03 They ran the table undefeated.
10:05 They deserve to be there.
10:07 I'm getting off track.
10:10 But the point is, we went from four to 12 to ensure that we're
10:15 putting the teams that deserve to be there, they're in.
10:19 There's no question about it.
10:21 Once you get to that 13, 14, 15 kind of mark, it's a little gray and
10:25 it's like, okay, well, you weren't really in the cream of the crop.
10:29 So we're not gonna really worry about it if we got it right or wrong.
10:33 But when we go to this designation type model where we're just,
10:39 we're giving you three, we're giving you three, you two, you two, and you one.
10:44 We're kind of going away from that again.
10:48 Put the best 14 teams in the freaking playoff.
10:52 It's not hard.
10:54 We're trying to make this rocket science for no reason.
10:57 I mean, I don't think there's a need
11:04 to make this more complicated than it already is.
11:07 Putting in the 14 best teams is hard enough.
11:09 Putting in the best four teams is hard enough.
11:12 Putting in the best 12 teams is hard enough.
11:14 You don't need to start adding to that mix.
11:19 But secondly, and this is the part that I just get all juiced up and amped up about.
11:26 Automatic buys for the Big Ten and the SEC.
11:31 Lord have mercy.
11:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]
11:40 Goes right with what I was just saying.
11:42 We're putting in the best teams.
11:45 And you know what?
11:47 Maybe it also makes sense that we put them in order.
11:50 Maybe give the best two teams who deserve the freaking buy, the buy.
11:59 Not just give it to the champion of the Big Ten and the SEC because they
12:06 are the champion of the two best conferences in college football.
12:10 Well, what's gonna happen if one of these years,
12:15 A, the said conference is down and it's not that impressive.
12:21 And B, what if the conference champion
12:28 of one of those two leagues has three or four freaking losses?
12:32 Is that likely to happen?
12:35 Probably not, but there's a chance.
12:39 So if we have a three loss or let's just say even a two loss,
12:45 let's just make this really realistic, okay?
12:49 You have a two loss SEC champion in Alabama.
12:52 You have one loss champion in Oklahoma State.
13:01 And you have an undefeated Florida State.
13:04 We're really gonna give the automatic buy to an Alabama team that's lost two
13:11 games over an Oklahoma State team that lost once and
13:16 a Florida State team who ran the table again.
13:19 We're back to freaking square one.
13:25 We're back to the problems we had just this year.
13:29 Not giving the teams that deserve to be in the playoff that opportunity or
13:35 in this case, their opportunity to have the buy.
13:38 Stop making it harder.
13:43 Why do we do this?
13:45 It's as easy as it gets.
13:48 Put the 14 best in, the top two get the buy.
13:51 Let's stop catering to the freaking big ten and the SEC.
13:58 And again, if they wanna have that extra bid,
14:02 if that's the model that they go with, with the 14 team and
14:06 where it's you get three, you get three, two, two, and one, whatever.
14:10 Let them have the extra bid.
14:13 Size of the conference, the money pool, I get it, whatever.
14:17 But the minute you start demanding an automatic buy,
14:26 I'm sorry, but don't let the door hit you on the way out.
14:28 I mean, that is ridiculous.
14:31 What is this, the AFC and the NFC and everybody else is the XFL or the UFL?
14:37 Come on.
14:38 At this point, if that's what we're going to do, why does the Big 12 ACC and
14:46 Group of Five even matter in this equation?
14:48 You're not giving them that fair opportunity.
14:52 If someone literally runs the table in the Big 12,
14:55 and say they have one of the toughest schedules in college football.
15:01 Say you have a top five strength of schedule,
15:05 they're blowing teams out there just running through people.
15:08 Just killing them.
15:12 They go undefeated, they win the conference championship handily.
15:18 They have maybe one of the top players in the country, a quarterback.
15:22 But they don't get an automatic bid, or excuse me, an automatic buy.
15:26 Does that make any damn sense?
15:30 And I know the Big 10 and the SEC, they're just trying to do as much as
15:35 possible to, like I said, have power of this thing.
15:38 But there's a point where a line has to be drawn, and that's where I'm drawn.
15:44 Hard in the sand.
15:47 That is not going to happen.
15:50 And if the Big 12 and ACC commissioners, and
15:54 the Group of Five commissioners, if they even entertain this idea,
16:00 they're insane.
16:03 So this is, again, a proposed model.
16:09 Doesn't mean it's gonna happen.
16:11 I don't think it'll happen.
16:13 I don't see how, again, the other commissioners of other conferences are
16:16 gonna let that go down.
16:19 But the 3-3-2-2-1 model, that's a possibility.
16:23 So if that's what happens, that's what happens.
16:28 But it can't go to the automatic buys.
16:30 Then we're just playing with nonsense at this point.
16:34 So, all right, well, listen, I've gotta go.
16:38 It's past my time.
16:40 It's Friday.
16:41 I've gotta get up and out of here.
16:42 I've got other things to do.
16:44 I can't be sitting here complaining all damn day.
16:47 You probably heard enough of me of doing that this week.
16:50 But anyways, thank you guys for
16:52 tuning in to another episode of Between the Ears here on Mountaineers Now.
16:55 Subscribe and give us a like on our channel at Mountaineers Now.
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17:09 I will be back tomorrow with Christopher Hall to wrap up the regular season as we
17:15 recap the West Virginia Cincinnati game on the Mountaineers Now post game show.
17:20 So until then, take care and we'll see you tomorrow afternoon.
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