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00:00The question is, though, because, you know, you wrote about how the maybe the format the 12 team
00:04format needs to be reassessed and fixed and and just how ugly it was. Can all be forgiven now
00:12in this quarterfinal round if we get four good games? What what is it ultimately due to the
00:17committee and to the sport where we're at expanding from 4 to 12? Well, I think in some ways if we had
00:23four good games, it would it would affirm the decisions that the committee and and the college
00:30football playoff at large made relative to the construction of the playoff. And I know they have
00:35input from conference commissioners and such. I love the conference college football playoff
00:41being 12 teams. I think that it absolutely is essential. I don't think there's any other word
00:47essential that there be automatic qualification for the five highest ranked conference champions.
00:54It's not a real playoff without that. But there's no rule that says and certainly this doesn't
00:59apply in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. There's no rule. It says you have to get an
01:04advantage seed because you want a conference. Lots of teams get number one seeds in the NCAA
01:09tournament without winning their conferences, either regular season or the tournament. That
01:15happened with Tennessee in twenty nineteen pit in 2009 off the top of my head. Examples
01:20won neither their regular season or conference championships, but were judged to be one of the
01:24four best teams. So I don't think that seeding Boise State and Arizona State into the quarter
01:31finals was the right call. Everything else they did was great. But doing that disadvantaged the
01:37first round, made it made it. So there were more mismatches. I mean, Indiana versus Boise State
01:43might have been a great game, but we'll never know. And you look in the quarter finals and
01:48you've got Ohio State going in as a favorite against the team that's with an undefeated
01:53record and was the number one overall seed in the tournament. That doesn't seem right.
01:56That seems like there's a mismatch in seeding there. And then you have double digit seed
02:02favorites that had to play in the in the first round and are now playing against quarterfinal
02:09opponents that got seeds. So I think the same about the NFL. I mean, the fact that either the
02:15Vikings or the Lions are going to have to go on the road and play against an eight or nine win
02:19team in a couple of weeks is ridiculous. But I think that the college football playoff should
02:24have followed the example of the superior postseason. And that's the NCAA tournament,
02:29not the NFL playoffs. Do you think the expanded format really kind of further waters down these
02:37bowl games? Like people should have and maybe people were, but not to the degree that ordinarily
02:42they would be. You should have been elated to have like New Year's Eve and we've got Alabama
02:48against Michigan. I know these two schools, these programs weren't this year what they have been
02:52historically. Certainly it wasn't the Rose Bowl last year and seeing them this year.
02:57And then you sprinkle, you know, all around college football saying that, all right, well,
03:00how do I if I'm a better, how do I even wager on this game knowing that all the coach left
03:04or all the coordinators have left? Oh, the best players have sat out because they've declared for
03:09the NFL drafter. Oh, look how many guys aren't playing because they're in the transfer portal
03:13to where it's like, it feels like you have JV teams out there, high school teams out there.
03:17I know that wasn't the case specifically with Alabama, Michigan, but do these games just feel
03:22that much less important? I think, I think that's fair to say they're important to the schools
03:29that have the teams in the games. If you're a Pitt fan, you wanted to see them beat Toledo
03:36or you're an Alabama fan, you wanted to see them beat Michigan. I think it matters to them and it
03:41gives networks good programming that people watch because they like football. And it is something
03:48to wager on, although it is a challenge to figure out how teams are going to perform
03:53when they are not whole. And we, but that's been a problem really in college football,
04:00starting probably 20 years ago when coaches started taking jobs and leaving before the
04:05bowl games, that's probably when it began. I remember specifically when Brian Kelly left
04:09Cincinnati with an undefeated team to go take the Notre Dame job. That was sort of the apotheosis of
04:16that particular practice. And then you started to see players opt out and then you started to
04:20see the transfer portal have an impact as well. So all of that has watered the bowl games down a
04:26bit. But I've always said, Adam, that the reality is that the people who claim that the bowls have
04:33been good for college football aren't telling the truth. The bowls have always been good for the
04:38bowls. And that's really all, that's all the further it goes. If you're a player in one of
04:42those games, you got a nice trip and maybe a good swag bag, but the games never were consequential
04:49beyond whatever game was designated as the national championship game in that particular year.