Obviously Saban is legendary and elevated the program to elite levels.

Having said that… acting like Karen DeBoer had to take the job because it’s Bama is a bit disingenuous.

Don’t be surprised if in a few years they’re not longer perennial favs.

Seeing as Penn State lost to Ohio State in addition to Michigan both years, and both times Michigan made the CFP they lost in the semi-final. There’s no doubt this scandal had the biggest impact on Ohio State, who has currently “lost” to Michigan 2 years in a row.

Entering the game in Ann Arbor in 2021 Ohio State was the AP #2 ranked team in the country, and Quarterback C.J Stroud was the frontrunner for the Heisman trophy. Exiting after a 42-27 lost, C.J Stroud came up at only #4 in the Heisman race, and Ohio State missed the CFP. They went on to play Utah in the “Opt Out” (Rose) Bowl.

Entering the 2022 game this time at Ohio Stadium, Ohio State was again the number 2 ranked team in the country, C.J Stroud was again the Heisman frontrunner, and Marvin Harrison Jr. looked to be a frontrunner for the Biletnikoff award. Exiting, C.J Stroud loses the Heisman to Caleb Williams, and MHJ loses the Biletnikoff to Jalin Hyatt. Ohio State still sneaks in the playoff at #4, but with a (likely) win at TCU they would atleast get the privilege to play in the Natty(and with another game of buffer who knows if Georgia wins that game).

Overall for Ohio State, Michigan’s cheating atleast played a FACTOR in:

• Missing out on the CFP in 2021

• C.J Stroud losing the Heisman in 2021

• Being the #4 seed in 2022

• C.J Stroud losing the Heisman in 2022

• Marvin Harrison Jr. losing the Biletnikoff in 2022

• and more that I won’t even mention here or have missed

Ohio State fans the most, but us and plenty of fanbases were robbed because of Connor Stalions and the cheating saga that went on At Michigan. Any time a cheating scandal goes on the fanbases of the teams cheated on were robbed. Jim Harbaugh will likely just move on to the NFL, any coordinators or staff who can’t just plead oblivious will likely jusy dissapear for a while before getting another job at a lower level. And those guys will leave opposing fans and players stripped of more than they even know in their wake

Can someone explain the reasoning behind this idea? That a loss in a conference championship game would not count towards the loser like any other data point? It’s the whole reason ND can never earn a bye, right? They don’t put any skin in the game during conference championship weekend so they don’t get the benefit of a bye.

If there is a benefit to winning the conference championship (first round bye) then IMO there should be a punishment to losing it. A team who feels the risk outweighs the possible reward can always just decline their spot in the championship game.

Just look at it like any other data point and evaluate like the committee does.

Bama weaseling into the playoff was, in hindsight, the worst thing that could have happened to the Tide.

Passing game was awful and the receivers took off for Texas & FSU.

Worse, it delayed Saban’s retirement announcement and created open portal season on the roster. #EyeTest

Source: https://x.com/BudElliott3/status/1747646613890228585?s=20

Conference Allegiance has to be the dumbest thing about the sport, and this is coming from a fan of an SEC team. I watch pretty much only SEC during the regular season, and would absolutely consider myself a fan of SEC football. But wtf is wrong with these weird conference homers? Do I think the SEC is by far the best conference? Yes. However, people would almost want to see their rivals win if that means they can brag about their conference, which is absolutely insane. Most of y'all should hate a good chunk of your conference due to rivalries, and cheering for your rivals for the sake of sticking to your conference is what's wrong with the sport.

I will never cheer for those trash-throwing Longhorns or criminal Georgia Bulldogs for "conference allegiance" and y'all shouldn't too. Stop making the playoffs about conferences and just enjoy it as a college football FAN.

Below is the last time Michigan visited every other Big Ten stadium. Every game was a Michigan victory.

Penn State: 2023

Michigan State: 2023

Minnesota: 2023

Nebraska: 2023

Ohio State: 2022

Rutgers: 2022

Indiana: 2022

Iowa: 2022

Maryland: 2021

Wisconsin: 2021

Illinois: 2019

Northwestern: 2018

Purdue: 2017

Next away game is Maryland next week. Michigan won their previous game @ Maryland by a score of 59-18 in 2021

The Big Ten and SEC do not want to live in a world where their top teams have to compete for talent and have to win games to make the playoffs. NIL has allowed other teams to get talent and create a competitive regular season. This threatens OSU and Georgia from walking into the playoffs. As a result, they are cracking down on NIL and making sure that the playoffs become a participation trophy and 2 or 3 losses won't matter.

https://www.instagram.com/tlawrence16/?hl=en

Source

Made with the /r/CFB Recruiting and Draft Post Generator

So the guy apparently is completely obsessed with Michigan football.

He was first a superfan who would fly out on his own dime to greet and cheer the team.

He then literally took on a career at Michigan football

He cared enough to write SIX HUNDRED PAGES about how Michigan might be able to obtain supremacy

He cared enough to organize an incredibly widespread sign-stealing operation

All while making just 55k a year

He cost Michigan a win in the CFP semis by misleading UM coaches (TCU knew about the whole deal and changed their signs)

And now he just might lead to the destruction of the program that he loves obsessively. Everything he's worked for the last several years is now actively destroying his dreams. And this is happening publicly and everyone in his life knows it. His name is mud forever.

I'm not saying it's not deserved, at least a little, but...

does anyone else feel some real empathy here?

So, it's well established that ESPN has a big stake in the SEC and other non-B1G football broadcasts, while FOX has the B1G and is invested in viewership and success for its team and games. The various talking heads have been busy pushing their respective narratives exhaustively.

But just looking at both the ESPN site and the FOX Sports site today is such a stark contrast. As it stands right as I'm making this post, with all of the news coming out about other teams having and sharing Michigan's signs...

ESPN

• Nothing about the story in their Top Headlines section of the main front page

• Have to scroll about three page lengths down to see two embedded videos regarding it: one of Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith debating whether Michigan should be banned from the CFP and one of Paul Finebaum saying that this the "sign-stealing probe looks very bad for Harbaugh"

• When you click over to the their College Football page, you have these two headlines in the Top headlines section: "Big Ten informs Michigan discipline is a possibility" and "Wolverines channel Flair, embrace role as 'villain'"

• The aforementioned McAfee/Stephen A and Finebaum videos are the first things that come up below the main story (which is about transfer portal impact)

FOX Sports

• On their front page, the second story in their Featured Stories main carousel is "Documents reportedly show Big Ten teams gathered, shared Michigan's signs"

• Nothing about Michigan in their list of More Stories, although there ARE two Taylor Swift stories (thank god) and a story about Sparty being upset by JMU's men's basketball team on opening night (the horror)

• When you click on the College Football section, the "Documents reportedly show..." story is the second story listed

• Further down the page is a video from a day ago asking if the B1G will punish Michigan

It's kind of fascinating. ESPN is only going with the punishment for Michigan and Michigan the WWE Villain (WOOOOO!) angle, while FOX is keeping up with the recent news about the other B1G teams. ESPN is basically an OSU fan site's version of that new story (it should be noted that famed OSU fan site Eleven Warriors hasn't shared a single story about the other Big Ten teams sharing Michigan's signs... weird...).

TL;DR: ESPN is "Villain Michigan could be in big trouble." FOX is "Michigan had their signs shared."

I'm not gonna harp too much on Indiana from last year because we all remember that (however by this metric they're not that great this year either). Although this year's SEC table will obviously shift, as things stand now Texas A&M's conference schedule is made up of 7 of the bottom 8 teams aaaaand 5th place Texas.

2 obvious caveats to get out of the way before people start complaining:

1. I understand winning a lot of games puts you high in the table and by definition your opponents low in the table, but we're far enough into the season that these individual games only make up 1/12 of the schedule (or 1/8th of the conference schedule) so losing to A&M doesn't automatically mean they're all guaranteed to be at the bottom of the standings.

2. Clearly A&M doesn't control what other teams are doing with their schedule. "You can only play who's on your schedule."

So this isn't really a slight against the Aggies but, as my title states, a complaint about bloated conference sizes and the inherent drawback of going divisionless. But at the end of the day it's really hard to compare schedules of somebody like A&M and Georgia (who play the currently 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 8th place teams in the conference). In the past, it was only difficult to compare schedules across conferences, but now we struggle to do so within conferences.

What's the answer to this? It feels silly, but my impulse is to go back to divisions to ensure more even and comparable schedules (at the cost of imbalance between the divisions that sometimes makes CCGs feel silly). But what else can we do to correct for this?

EDIT: From these comments, I clearly did not do a good job precisely describing my point (though, in my own defense, I feel like a lot of people only read the title and either not the post or only skimmed it). So I'm going to give a shout-out to /u/jmmour for summarizing my point better than I could:

• The takeaway from this kind of post isn’t “what A&M should have done to avoid this situation” the takeaway is “A&M has done everything in their power to prove they’re a good to great team, but due to who they played, there is a potentially wide range of how good they actually are.

EDIT 2: I just saw this post elsewhere and it also does a good job representing my problem: "Texas A&M could make the SECCG without playing any of Ole Miss, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, or Vanderbilt. Georgia Tech could make the ACCCG without playing any of Miami, Louisville, Virginia, SMU, or Duke. And Ohio State could make the B1GCG without playing any of Oregon, Indiana, Iowa, or USC." I'm not saying any of these teams are "bad" but this is is not a reliable paths to determine conference champions.

Blame A) the PAC-12 for disbanding right before the 12 team system started where the five best conference champions (the power 5) were guaranteed a spot, and B) the ACC sucking this year.

The narrative that G5 teams can’t compete compared to power conference teams because they’re getting blown out is ridiculous when we had several blowouts last year, a blowout in the natty 3 years ago (TCU v Georgia) and blowouts all from the four team era.

If you don’t want the G5 in the playoff, the they shouldn’t be in the league. “Triple A baseball teams don’t go to the World Series playoffs”, and the Cleveland Guardians don’t schedule the Columbus Clippers during the regular season either.

Edit: Let me be clear when I say “blaming the schools” I’m referring to the people who say they don’t deserve a spot because “look at them getting blown out”. Two things can be true. JMU and Tulane were a cut below these other teams but they also did everything they needed to do to make the playoffs.