That was the semi, Ohio State beat ND in the title game@the-funeral-director Texas was in the championship game 2 years ago and lost to Ohio State.
Only 3 years ago when they went undefeated. Alabama scheduled them when they were pretty good.Well Well Well...I have been saying this for years...All this NIL has done is level the playing field...I am 100% for it...No cap no change no nothing...The SEC has gotten away with cheating by paying players for years...Now they don't have that advantage anymore and what do you know...They haven't won anything since and aren't going to in the foreseeable future...The next SEC national champ is going to come from the state of Texas as they are the only schools in the SEC that can compete monetarily with the money from the B1G schools...This is EXACTLY why Tricky Nicky Saban the fraud got out...His Dodge Chargers and buying houses for the big recruits don't hold the same sway it once did...The hand picking of 4 teams in a playoff so they could rig the thing to their favor is now over...Although they are bellyaching to make changes so they can fudge the seeding so they can avoid the debacle of the original 12 team CFP of them having to play north and get their rear ends kicked in...ESPN is their benefactor and they still hold a great deal of sway and that is why you see 12 teams from that conference in the top 25...This is why they tout the strength of schedule bullshit...Who do these guys play outside of conference? Well let me pull up Georgia real quick and see what their out of conference 2026 schedule is...Well they open up against 2 perennial powerhouses...Tennessee State and Western Kentucky...then they go to their regular conference schedule and finish up against Georgia Tech...So beating a team like Pitt or West Virginia as an out of conference game means so much? Seriously...Lets look at Bama...they got East Carolina, Chattanooga and Florida State as their out of conference games...When was the last time Florida State was good? Again the whole thing is a farce...B1G should get 4 teams in...SEC should get 4 teams in...Big 12 and ACC gets an automatic in and you put in 2 at large teams...This ain't rocket science...Since the 12 team expansion the SEC hasn't even had a team in the finals let alone win one...So why the deference to that conference who has done nothing since the 12 team expansion? What does that say about the rigged up 4 team setup that they controlled prior to that? I said that conference was a fraud for years and I am being proven correct...What warrants them to have 12 teams in the top 25? Other than the fact that ESPN has a business interest in their success...By the way...They are the only ones holding up the CFP expansion as well...They don't want to expand to 24 teams and everybody else does...Why do you think that is? I can tell you...They only want to play with themselves so they can yodel around about how great they are cause if they gotta play other people and get their asses kicked they will be exposed...That is what has happened to them the last 2 years...They don't want to have to come north in December and play football...The whole setup favors them...They play in the south at their stadiums and make everybody else travel...The funny thing is with all of it and they still can't win...
That said, they lost to FSU anyway! LMAO!
As for it being a farce... I mean, the CFP in 2 years has put 8 SEC teams in and 7 Big Ten teams, so really only 1 off of your 4 auto bid average anyway. Sure the SEC got 5 one year, and then got 3 another. Big Ten got 3 one year and 4 another. IMO that's not really a farce, seems fairly close to your 4 auto bid strategy anyway.
To be honest with you Roam I would go with 2 teams from the power 4 conferences...One would be the conference champion getting the auto bid and the conference picking the 2nd team...So that gets you to 8...You get one team in from the group of 5 so now you got 9 auto qualifiers...That leaves you 3 at large teams left to pick and I would only allow 1 team from a conference to be selected...This happy horseshit of loading 5 teams from a conference into a 12 team tournament is ridiculous...To have 12 teams in the preseason top 25 from one conference is also ridiculous...And what makes it more absurd is it is from a conference that hasn't even had a team in the CFP finals since they expanded to 12 team format and hasn't won the tournament in the last 3 years...This is what you do when you can't win head to head...You juice up your league with phony rankings so all you do is play with yourself and brag that you have the toughest schedule and best conference which is total bullshit...This is why I call the whole thing a farce...
One final thought...Why after 3 years of getting your ass kicked does anyone allow them to make an obviously false statement declaring themselves the best conference? I would call them and ESPN out on it every chance I get...We all know why it goes on because ESPN is their business partner and has a large financial interest in perpetuating the big lie...I knew all along and said as much on this forum...I said over and over expand this thing and see what the SEC does...Now we know...They ain't done shit...I was right and it was a farce all along...Now they don't want to go to 24 teams...Why do you think that is? I think we all know the answer...
@the-funeral-director the SEC dominated college football for around 20 years simply because they had the best players and the NFL rosters backs that statement up. The SEC has taken a big step back the last 3 years because they don’t have the best players anymore nil and transfers portal lets these dudes go where the money is that’s just the facts. Big picture here I know a team like Indiana can sneak in and win a NC every once in a while but it won’t happen that often money will win most of the time.
He knows that, his point was the SEC was paying their players and now everyone can. That has always been his point.@the-funeral-director the SEC dominated college football for around 20 years simply because they had the best players and the NFL rosters backs that statement up. The SEC has taken a big step back the last 3 years because they don’t have the best players anymore nil and transfers portal lets these dudes go where the money is that’s just the facts. Big picture here I know a team like Indiana can sneak in and win a NC every once in a while but it won’t happen that often money will win most of the time.
@roaminglion I’m sure it went on in the SEC but not at the scale everybody might think Ohio St probably was paying players as well and I’m sure there’s a few more teams from all the conferences paying players under the table.
With what Ohio State, USC and Miami has got away with leaves no room to say other teams were cheating because these teams are at the top getting away with cheating. Alabama wasn’t the only team getting away with cheating.
To be fair now I know the SEC teams and their fan bases are a bunch of crybabies I just don’t believe they cheat anymore than Ohio State,Michigan, USC or Miami that’s all I’m saying.
I agree, the SEC certainly wasn't the only one doing it for sure@roaminglion I’m sure it went on in the SEC but not at the scale everybody might think Ohio St probably was paying players as well and I’m sure there’s a few more teams from all the conferences paying players under the table.
So now we go to the whataboutisms...I am sure you had other teams doing the payola...USC during the Pete Carroll era is a prime example...I know Texas was pulling the same shenanigans but by and large the conference that was the most flagrant about it was the SEC...It was no coincidence that certain programs were consistently pulling in the vast majority of the top recruits year after year...Isn't it funny how the dynamics of it all changed when EVERYBODY can openly pay players...Isn't it funny how all of a sudden you see these 5 star recruits going to teams like Oregon and Texas A&M and being evenly distributed to multiple programs rather than the vast majority of them going to 3 or 4 programs primarily in the SEC...Like my father always said...If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and shits like a duck it's a duck...Was the SEC the only program doing it...NO...It is never all or total for anything...There are always outliers but to say the SEC wasn't the biggest offender is pure folly...Why do you think they are crying and yodeling for change? The NIL neutered them and turned them into eunuchs...Now that we have a fair and equitable system in place they can't win anymore...They can't just play with themselves anymore...The last thing they can do now is rig the rankings and puff up their strength of schedule to try to leverage another team or 2 extra into the CFP to give them that advantage...It's an insult to everyone's intelligence to try to peddle the notion that 12 of the top 25 teams in the country are in one conference...Especially a conference that has done jack and shit in the last 2 CFP's where there are 12 teams in it and they can't play with themselves anymore...I hate to tell them that they ain't the best conference in the country anymore and by the CFP results they may be 3rd behind the ACC as they have Notre Dame and Miami and they have had more success than any of the SEC teams...12 teams in the top 25...Give me an effing break...
"Isn't it funny how all of a sudden you see these 5 star recruits going to teams like Oregon and Texas A&M"So now we go to the whataboutisms...I am sure you had other teams doing the payola...USC during the Pete Carroll era is a prime example...I know Texas was pulling the same shenanigans but by and large the conference that was the most flagrant about it was the SEC...It was no coincidence that certain programs were consistently pulling in the vast majority of the top recruits year after year...Isn't it funny how the dynamics of it all changed when EVERYBODY can openly pay players...Isn't it funny how all of a sudden you see these 5 star recruits going to teams like Oregon and Texas A&M and being evenly distributed to multiple programs rather than the vast majority of them going to 3 or 4 programs primarily in the SEC...Like my father always said...If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and shits like a duck it's a duck...Was the SEC the only program doing it...NO...It is never all or total for anything...There are always outliers but to say the SEC wasn't the biggest offender is pure folly...Why do you think they are crying and yodeling for change? The NIL neutered them and turned them into eunuchs...Now that we have a fair and equitable system in place they can't win anymore...They can't just play with themselves anymore...The last thing they can do now is rig the rankings and puff up their strength of schedule to try to leverage another team or 2 extra into the CFP to give them that advantage...It's an insult to everyone's intelligence to try to peddle the notion that 12 of the top 25 teams in the country are in one conference...Especially a conference that has done jack and shit in the last 2 CFP's where there are 12 teams in it and they can't play with themselves anymore...I hate to tell them that they ain't the best conference in the country anymore and by the CFP results they may be 3rd behind the ACC as they have Notre Dame and Miami and they have had more success than any of the SEC teams...12 teams in the top 25...Give me an effing break...
Oregon started pulling big recruits way before NIL, and Texas A&M has been in the SEC for nearly two decades... so bad examples
@roaminglion...I asked A.I. how many times Oregon finished in the top 10 of college football recruiting from 1980 thru 2020...That's a 40 year span of time...from 1980-2000 no recruiting rankings existed however A.I. stated that Oregon football based on the information it could gather was never anywhere close to being considered a top recruiting program and proceeded to list about 15 pages of data comparing them to USC, Washington and other Pac 12 programs of the era...from 2000 thru 2020 Oregon had a top 10 recruiting program 2 times...Since the NIL was introduced to college football in July of 2021 Oregon has finished #13, #10, #3, #5 and #2 (2026)...To me that is a pattern and they are the poster child program for what this out in the open paying players can do to turn around a program...They have done 4 years in a row what they could only do 2 other times in 40 years...As far as Texas A&M is concerned I am getting old and in a hurry...A&M got in the SEC on July 1, 2012 so it has been about 14 years...Time flies...The point I am trying to make is getting this money out in the open and seeing the programs with the money that may have been middle of the pack or upper tier programs all of sudden becoming power houses or jumping up some tiers as a result of bigger NIL budgets then some of the old football powers...The paradigm is shifting toward the programs with the hgh NIL budgets...
The kids in the south just stayed home before NIL and the transfer portal now they go where the money is. If there wasn’t NIL and the transfer portal the SEC would be still dominating college football especially Alabama and Georgia. So many folk up north has come south and it’s given the south an advantage in recruiting but the portal and NIL is changing that.
@southern-psu-fan Yep, unfortunately for the $EC, NIL reigns! Talk all they want, PROVE it! Unfortunately for them, they can't anymore. Ok, well, they can still talk, but they can't walk!
From 2018 to 2023 when NIL started they were in the top 10 for getting the most 5* athletes. I don’t really care about 2000. They receny started recruiting extremely well, before NIL Also not surprising their recruiting went even higher when they joined the Big Ten.@roaminglion...I asked A.I. how many times Oregon finished in the top 10 of college football recruiting from 1980 thru 2020...That's a 40 year span of time...from 1980-2000 no recruiting rankings existed however A.I. stated that Oregon football based on the information it could gather was never anywhere close to being considered a top recruiting program and proceeded to list about 15 pages of data comparing them to USC, Washington and other Pac 12 programs of the era...from 2000 thru 2020 Oregon had a top 10 recruiting program 2 times...Since the NIL was introduced to college football in July of 2021 Oregon has finished #13, #10, #3, #5 and #2 (2026)...To me that is a pattern and they are the poster child program for what this out in the open paying players can do to turn around a program...They have done 4 years in a row what they could only do 2 other times in 40 years...As far as Texas A&M is concerned I am getting old and in a hurry...A&M got in the SEC on July 1, 2012 so it has been about 14 years...Time flies...The point I am trying to make is getting this money out in the open and seeing the programs with the money that may have been middle of the pack or upper tier programs all of sudden becoming power houses or jumping up some tiers as a result of bigger NIL budgets then some of the old football powers...The paradigm is shifting toward the programs with the hgh NIL budgets...
Just saying their were better examples... for instance Texas Tech. That's a huge one.
YES!!! I was going to site them as well but my post was getting too long... 🤣
@Southern PSU Fan...The kids in the south just stayed home before NIL and the transfer portal now they go where the money is. If there wasn’t NIL and the transfer portal the SEC would be still dominating college football especially Alabama and Georgia. So many folk up north has come south and it’s given the south an advantage in recruiting but the portal and NIL is changing that.
The kids in the south stayed home because they were getting PAID and the kids from north went south because they were getting PAID!!! They always went where the money was and is...That is my whole point...There IS a transfer portal and NIL money now that EVERYBODY can pay right out in the open...The $EC lost their competitive edge...YES especially Bama and Georgia cause they were paying...LOL...You have made my point for me...They didn't call Bama Dodge Charger U for nothing...If my memory serves Georgia gave out Chevy's and the higher up recruits got tuned up Chevy trucks...Why do you think Tricky Nicky Saban got out? He saw the handwriting on the wall...He knew the jig was up...His Dodge Chargers didn't mean shit anymore cause the Oregon's of the world could do even better and it was all out in the open...Why do you think I don't want a cap on anything...That makes it all out in the open and nobody can skirt a salary cap and cheat...I love it all out in the open...
So sick of hearing and reading about $$$, greed and the NIL that quite honestly my enthusiasm for the upcoming season is probably the lowest it’s ever been.
I’m almost to the point of not caring at all.
@psujoe I'll still watch, but yeah, my give a shit level has dropped to the point it doesn't affect my mood nearly as much. lol But I'd still rather win!
Just listened to MC big 10 media day and I like him even more after hearing what he said. He’s a good dude and I feel a lot better after listening to him.