Our NEW top 12, this year's BIGGEST surprises, more Week 9 reactions

[@stevegirard-voiceaudiopodcasts]

Oh, and the folks who said that the expanded playoffs would tend to make regular season games less important were just wrong. Teams will be viable for this tournament until the last wknd. I think that’s pretty cool.

[@natlovell122]

Right?!? I knew that wouldn’t be the case. Plus NIL and transfer portal have evened out the playing field. Really fun season so far. It’s really hard to say who the actual top team is right now.

[@solidverbal]

Ty here... Interestingly enough, we're doing an interview today with a different show and one of the questions they want to discuss is what "success" looks like for the first year of the 12-team playoff. This is almost my exact point. There was such a concern that the regular season would feel watered down and I actually think it's been the exact opposite. If anything, IMO, it's thrown more fuel on the fire and created more reasons to stay engaged.

[@jpDragna]

Question, which scenario seems more likely? B1G Chaos - Indiana, Oregon, Penn State all go undefeated ACC Chaos - Miami, Clemson, SMU all go undefeated in league play Big 12 Chaos - the 2 loss possibilities if Colorado and Arizona State win out, ASU would be beating BYU and Kansas State in that scenario, Kansas State beating Iowa State, and both Iowa State and BYU losing one other game putting those 5 teams at 2 losses in conference play each acknowledging that of the conferences the Big 12 has the least stability at the top in terms of confidence of their teams winning out. SEC Chaos - A&M, Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee all control their own destinies here in that if they win out, they're eliminating their competition, and the other pair is eliminating the remaining competition. But if any of those teams stumble, woof. I don't even want to do the scenarios, but throwing this out, if Vandy wins out (seeing how they played Alabama and Texas, LSU and Tennessee aren't insurmountable), they have as much of a chance to get into the SEC title game with 2 conference losses even though they lost to Georgia St. Incredibly unlikely, but that's how razor's edge the SEC is from utter chaos. But which conference is most likely to venture closest to said chaos?

[@samscheidegger8925]

As an OSU fan, if they were to move on from Day, most fans would want Mike Vrabel. I don’t know if Vrabel would want the job though .

[@WidgeonDrake]

I have been watching you guys for awhile now, and I seriously think you two are a couple of the nicest people on KZbin. My gf and I want to drink beers & karaoke with you both in Scottsdale where we live 😂 Go Ducks!

[@solidverbal]

That’s very kind of you to say. Thanks for watching and stay solid!

[@jpDragna]

I think more people need to be concerned about Ohio State and their offensive line (until proven otherwise, and this weekend will be that proof honestly....although really only if Allar is good to go). They lost a single left tackle to a season ending injury and couldn't get any ground game going, which Nebraska ostensibly has one of the better rushing defenses, but gave up 381 combined to Indiana and Illinois. Ohio State is supposed to be at least as good as those team. They have talent enough elsewhere to overcome it, but this was supposed to be a strength for them this year, and it's looking like they don't have the depth at the line to carry it through (oh by the way the backup left tackle went down with an injury late against Nebraska as well....yikes). Top 12 looks great, except I don't think Tennessee belongs anymore. Their offense just isn't good against even moderate competition (Florida is not good on defense, and they needed all four quarters and some luck to get 24 on them), and they're mostly riding the wave of "Well they beat Alabama!" There are so many other teams that have been more impressive this year, and honestly I'd start with Boise State. More and more that 3 point loss to Oregon is looking like an asset that should propel them beyond #12 if the committee can open their eyes for once. Losing sucks, but the loss to Arkansas looks worse (I saw some people saying Arkansas should be in over Mizzou...and I mean they should, but by that logic so should Louisville as their three losses are by a touchdown a piece to three ranked teams whereas Arkansas has an ugly loss to a struggling Oklahoma State team, kept it tight against A&M, and got blown out by LSU, the desire to swap SEC for SEC is blinding some people I guess). Beyond the bad loss wins against "ranked" NC State and Oklahoma are now looking mediocre at best, and barely scraping by Florida is not enough to prop up beating a clearly flawed Alabama team. I'm also questioning Penn State's position, but as is obvious that's going to be answered Saturday either way, but my particular question probably won't be, unless someone else wins as well. That someone else is Pitt. They've ranged from surprisingly good, to scraping by, to absolutely embarrassing people named Kyle. They're not as dominant looking as Indiana, but they've had a similar path as Penn State has to this point in the season. Penn State had close wins against Bowling Green and USC, their best win is an Illinois team I'm not really sure about. Them Fighting Illini are 6-2, but boy did they look terrible against Oregon, and one score wins against previously ranked Kansas and Nebraska have lost basically all of their luster (what the hell happened to you Kansas....hopefully you can beat Illinois and Indiana in basketball?). Point to the win, or single game where you thought, yeah Penn State is definitely better than what I've seen from Pitt this year. Drew Allar has been pretty good this year, but Eli Holstein's been better, although Penn State's defense is probably better. Point is, one is top 5, the other is lounging about at 18, and the sad thing is if they lose to SMU (and I think they probably will, because SMU has gotten better each week, and just survived a 6 turnover clunker of a game) they'll likely not be ranked and god knows Mizzou will jump back into the top 20 after beating Oklahoma. Speaking of SMU are there really twelve 1 and 2 loss teams that have played better than them right now? Because that's where they're sitting. I don't think they're playoff contention yet, but if they beat Pitt they should have been close enough that then they would be.

[@stevegirard-voiceaudiopodcasts]

PSU doesn’t seem to have a full-game offensive ‘throttle’. They have a 2nd-half throttle… they have just shot themselves in the foot during first halves, or else they would have crushed several of the teams on their schedule. But for some reason, both the PSU O & D hit another gear after the half. 128 - 30 in the 2nd half

[@cindymikolajczyk9936]

Notre Dame should be above TAM. Should be flip flopped.

[@solidverbal]

Beating MAC teams can be very tough, we're trying to give Marcus Freeman credit for splitting ND's MAC games

[@chadmorlan7475]

Iowa State has played nobody… NOTRE DAME has to be ahead of Iowa State and A&M… your clear Bias shows here!

[@ninefingerjack]

Iowa State is undefeated. Just by virtue of simple math your statement is incorrect.

[@chadmorlan7475]

@ they are undefeated and so is Indiana but have both played nobody!!! It’s fact

[@ninefingerjack]

@@chadmorlan7475 ok? What's their record again? That's a lot of cope and emotion champ.

[@solidverbal]

We're trying to give ND as much credit as humanly possible for hanging with NIU. Huskies barely got out of South Bend with a win.

[@Zooropa_Station]

Record matters in CFB. And I’m an ND fan - but let it go. In fact I think Pitt should be ahead of us too.